


Second Chances

by Laeviss



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Blow Jobs, Garrosh Hellscream is a Power Bottom, M/M, Self-Indulgent Holiday Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:18:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laeviss/pseuds/Laeviss
Summary: When Grom insists on marrying off his son to seal a peace treaty on Draenor, Varian volunteers to wed him in Anduin's place, and soon Garrosh must learn how to live as royal consort of Stormwind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flarenwrath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flarenwrath/gifts).



> Dedicated to my Varian and mate, Flarenwrath. ♥ We've been talking about this for years, and I'm so happy to finally bring our AU to life. Happy Holidays!

Varian Wrynn should have anticipated a trick like this.

Even though he had stressed this treaty’s importance to the other Alliance leaders, the idea of bargaining with the Hellscreams wasn’t exactly _palatable_. There was a difference between putting aside one’s grievances for the greater good and enjoying it, after all.

And so there he was: tense, shoulders squared and grey eyes fixed on the orcs exchanging whispers in front of him. On his left, Anduin gave off a calming aura, stabilizing him, keeping the grimace, at least, from his face. On his right, Jaina glowered, reminding him just how they stood to lose if they chose to place their trust in the ‘goodness’ of the Iron Horde.

“We agree to the terms of your treaty.” Grommash said, simply, his hands pressed against the map spread in front of them. On it, lines had been drawn in sweeping strokes: blue for Alliance, red for Horde, grey for Iron Horde... and in the center, like a leering eye, a circle of green marking the Legion’s presence on Draenor: Gul’dan, who had started it all, driving enemies together to stop a larger threat. 

Because while uncorrupted orcs could be reasoned with, the Legion’s flames knew no reconciliation. Varian had made a choice, and now he planned to stand by it. With a curt nod, he looked at Grom, and prompted him to continue.

“We will pool our resources to put down Gul’dan and the troops he has stolen from us,” he reiterated. Garrosh leaned over and whispered something in his ear, causing Jaina to bolt upright. Luckily, Varian soon realized, he was only reading his father the next statement. Grommash was illiterate, it seemed. The Alliance hadn’t taken that into consideration. 

“And withdraw from the area surrounding Auchindoun and Shattrath City,” Grom’s voice took on a certain edge when he said it, jaw clenching, but he didn’t protest. Instead, he went on to add, without glancing at the paper, “And your troops will withdraw from Oshu’gun and the surrounding burial grounds, yes?”

“Yes.” Anduin supplied, almost immediately. His voice was clear and reassuring, and when he said it, Tyrande and Genn exchanged meaningful glances. A farseer Varian didn’t recognize nodded in their direction, not seeming to realize why Tyrande had taken this particular stipulation so badly. How could he realize, Varian had to remind himself, when he knew nothing of the Hellscreams and their time on Azeroth? 

It was because of this that Varian managed to swallow, steady his gaze, and take the next statement without flinching.

“We also agree that, should we fail to contain the Legion here, our troops will mobilize to protect your planet and city of Stormwind.”

Varian simply pursed his lips and regarded Garrosh: he was no longer looking at the treaty, but instead staring back at Varian with eyes narrowed and a frown Varian initially thought to be resignation. However, when Grommash added the next statement, and Garrosh’s teeth grit together behind sulking lips, Varian started to have second thoughts. There was a chance some other emotion was at work here.

“In addition, my son, Garrosh Hellscream, will be given the chance to prove his loyalty and regain his honor as a free orc. He will not face punishment on your planet for his accused crimes.”

“Provided he continues to behave himself, yes.” Varian wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to add it. It only agitated the cluster of orcs across from them, causing them to shift in their seats and leer in Garrosh’s direction. Apparently, he hadn’t explained his history and the shackles he wore when he arrived on Draenor, and some of his allies seemed to take the news worse than others. 

“And what of the green orc?” A warrior Varian had heard Garrosh call ‘Tome’ was the next to speak. His voice was loud, gruff, even by Orcish standards, and when he spoke his eyes darted between Yrel and a Rangari scout Varian knew to be native to Nagrand. He paused, then added, “And what of your Horde? Why aren’t they here?”

At that, the ink brush that had rested beside Garrosh’s hand rolled with a ‘clck’ off the table. And Varian decided, finally, that Garrosh was more nervous than angry. The realization calmed his voice when he answered, allowing him to speak freely:

“The Horde, that Horde, is another faction on Azeroth—” One that Garrosh used to rule, he stopped himself from saying, choosing his words carefully— “The green orc, Go’el, is one of its leaders. He refused my offer to join this treaty.”

“So you will have us in open war with Gul’dan’s troops and the orcs from your world?”

Grom’s question was a candid one, and his tone much less suspicious than Varian had anticipated when he and his advisors worked through this. If anyone seemed upset about the prospect of going to war with Thrall, it was Garrosh, not Grom. With a cough to clear his voice, the human looked from the Warchief to his son, and explained:

“Go’el and his allies know of the treaty, and have agreed to respect it. Any war you fight with us will be against the Legion, not between the Alliance and the Horde.”

“Unless Go’el and his forces fall back into Gul’dan’s hands?”

“I don’t see that happening.”

Grom nodded, and the Iron Horde seemed mostly appeased. For a moment, there was silence, and Varian expected the orc to lift the brush and leave a mark of confirmation at the bottom of the page. The meeting could adjourn, and Varian could return to the Alliance garrison to continue reassuring the other leaders that yes, this was the right choice, and yes, letting Garrosh go was worth protecting Azeroth from the Burning Legion.

But what came next even gave Varian pause. The calming presence on his left wavered, and he wanted nothing more than to grab the treaty and rip it in two. The entire table seemed to draw in a breath; Grommash added, his voice firm:

“And according to Warsong tradition, we seal this treaty by joining together our children together as mates.”

____________________

Garrosh felt like the wind had been knocked from his lungs.

As if sitting across from Varian Wrynn and his son wasn’t torture enough, his father had sprung a request like this on them without consulting him first, without talking it over or making sure this was something that Garrosh wanted, let alone something the Alliance would agree to. And now Varian’s eyes were flashing, and Anduin’s cheeks were pale, and every single person around the table looked at him as if this were something he had added. He let out a growl; he caught Anduin shuddering.

“Father—” He tried to snarl, but Varian cut him off.

“I hardly think that a proper request,” it was the human king, clearly, but with an edge Garrosh hadn’t heard since their meeting in Ashenvale: like the roar of the sea, or the howl of a wolf enraged. A voice Garrosh knew to belong to the spirit of Lo’gosh. It filled him with unease. The blood drained from his face.

“Given their history—”

“Father, it’s okay. It’s fine.” Even Anduin sounded disheartened, and for the first time since their meeting began, he wouldn’t meet Garrosh’s eyes.

For his part, too, Garrosh didn’t know where to look. He opened his mouth to address his father, but Grom seemed more concerned with the exchange playing out in front of him. Jaina clenched Varian’s wrist on one side, and Varian pushed his other arm in front of Anduin, much to Anduin’s obvious chagrin, while the other Alliance leaders looked on. All the effort they had put into neutral expressions now passed wasted: Varian glared, Tyrande looked indignant, and it seemed as if Muradin might leap cross the table and take on Grommash fist-first. Garrosh watched his father’s eyes narrow: sharp, defensive.

Which, normally, Garrosh would have been pleased to see; right now, however, it gave him little joy.

“Is there a problem?”

“Of course there’s a pr—” Varian started, but Anduin, brushing his arm away, cut his protest short. Another look passed between them, and Anduin turned to face Garrosh head-on. 

“My father is concerned for my safety, Warchief.” With words carefully chosen, Anduin folded his arms in front of him and drew in an audible breath. And despite his best efforts to keep his own stare level, Garrosh was only able to regard him for a moment— searching his eyes, watching him bite and stop the nervous tremble of his lower lip— before having to look away. “But if these are the terms of the treaty, I agree to them. I will take your son, Garrosh,” his breath hitched, “as my mate.” 

“My son is an honorable orc,” Grom added, self-justifying, his eyes still fixed on Varian. “A fitting companion.” 

“My ass—” A crude Orcish expletive left Varian’s— or, it seemed, Lo’gosh’s— lips.

“ _What did you just say_?”

“Why are you doing this?” Jaina added a frantic interjection of her own: her voice sounded ragged, each word tinged with pain. Garrosh jutted out his tusks, but otherwise avoided acknowledging her, too invested in hearing his father’s answer to care who had asked the question. “What do you think can be gained from this? Isn’t pardoning your son for his crimes _enough_? It’s far more than he deserves.”

“I need to know that _your people_ won’t betray us, or take advantage as soon as you’ve gotten what you want. With my son in a place of honor, I can move forward knowing our interests will stay in your Alliance’s mind. Your distaste for us is clear.”

“Not for you,” Genn bristled, though Tyrande and Muradin looked unconvinced. “For him, Grommash. Your son is a criminal. A _monster_.” 

“Hold your tongue, dog!” Garrosh had meant to sound threatening; instead it came off as almost desperate. Cringing, and hoping the look never reached his face, he balled his hands into fists. “That’s _rich_ coming from you.” 

“See what I mean? You cannot expect us to—”

“I can expect cooperation!” Grommash’s bellow was loud enough to make the ale in front of him ripple and slosh. He was on his feet now, hands pressed against the table and eyes alight like the flames of a wildfire sweeping across the plains. Garrosh didn’t know whether to rise and join him, or to stay seated and look away. Settling on the latter, but only because conflicting feelings made it difficult to move, his gaze shifted from Genn, to Anduin, to the treaty spread out between them. 

At this point, the meeting was in shambles, the negotiations unravelling, and with them, too, Garrosh could see that pardon slipping from his grasp: forgiveness he didn’t think he deserved, but longed for, secretly, when darkness fell each night and when he was left alone with his thoughts. Not to mention rescue from the Legion, from a war that had been snatched up and turned against him. 

He needed this to work; _his people_ needed this to work. There was no amount of pride or shame in the world that made burning this agreement worth it. If he could only talk to his father, open his mouth and stop him before this got out of hand—

But when he tried to speak, his tongue wouldn’t move. When facing his father, Garrosh always found himself, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. 

His father, on the other hand, had no trouble raising his voice: “I came here under the impression this treaty would be up for discussion! We are here of our own accord, King Varian Wrynn, not as your prisoners. Hear our concerns, or we leave. I will not be insulted by the likes of you.”

Garrosh summoned his strength. He pushed himself onto his feet, and brought a shaky hand to his father’s shoulder. There was a pause; Grommash looked his way. And then, from the other side of the table, a voice, now stripped of its fury, stopped him:

“I will do you one better, Grommash,” Varian’s shift in tone, the assurance with which he spoke, brought silence on its heels. Everyone turned to look at him, and when Garrosh followed, he found his eyes, clear and even, staring into his own. The human nodded; Garrosh’s jaw ached from the tension that had set in.

“I will let him have me instead. Agree to this treaty, and I will take your son, Garrosh Hellscream, as my mate, and royal consort of Stormwind.”

____________________

That night, Varian found himself, as always, unable to sleep.

He had thought the cool air and gentle swish of the grassland, the ripple of water on the nearby lake, might have provided a better sleeping environment than Stormwind. At least he didn’t have to contend with the gulls and the shouts of late night carousers moving between Old Town and the Dwarven District. 

But while that might have proved true, the events of the previous day plagued his thoughts: Anduin, the treaty, Garrosh Hellscream’s flashing eyes and the knowledge that soon he’d be seeing those eyes every day, every night. As if he didn’t have enough trouble sleeping.

With his cloak wrapped about his shoulders, he wandered the path around what had once been Telaar. Shattered buildings, their violet edifices cracked and stained with blood, loomed overhead, and their new allies were to blame for all of it. Was this the kind of people he wanted to welcome in the Alliance? He already knew what Garrosh was capable of; now he would have them all to contend with, and Garrosh looming by his side every step of the way. With a sigh, he shook his head, and looked away from the ruined village.

Draenor’s largest moon cast its gaze over the mountains to the east: a white half-circle rising above the lip of the Throne of the Elements, bathing the meadow in shades of grey. Taking a seat on a boulder just off the side of the road, Varian watched, and listened. There was a soft ‘tch’ as an insect flitted between blades of grass; in the distance, he could hear a wolf howling, echoing off the walls of the valley. 

He wondered, for a moment, what Garrosh was doing tonight: if he was smug, gloating that he had forced the king’s hand. Something about the way the orc had looked at Anduin— a glance stolen in desperation, at the very moment when no one seemed to be paying attention— however, told Varian otherwise. He didn’t kid himself into believing it was remorse. But at the very least, Garrosh couldn’t welcome the prospect of moving to the city he had once hated, the city he had planned to destroy.

A city that, now, overwhelmingly, wanted to see him dead.

It hadn’t been difficult to convince Grom he was an adequate substitute for his son. After all, he still sat on Stormwind’s throne, and it wasn’t as if either Anduin or Varian could provide Garrosh any heirs. And at Garrosh’s age, marrying him to Varian, and giving the throne to him right away, seemed so much more logical… 

But, relieved as he was to spare Anduin this fate, he knew that the task of swaying Stormwind still loomed on the horizon like a storm kicking up at sea.

How could he return to his people, _all_ of his people, and tell them that not only had Garrosh survived the siege, but now he would sit on an Alliance throne? There would be uprisings. Even with Tyrande’s name on the treaty, he feared the kaldorei might break from the Alliance entirely. Without their involvement on Kalimdor, the Horde would rise against the pockets of humanity that had survived Garrosh’s tyranny, this time fighting not to claim the land as their own, but to punish the humans for taking in the very dictator they had fought to de-throne.

Sliding his fingers through his hair, he curled them into fists, and gave the stray locks of his bangs a tug. 

Lost in thought as he was, he didn’t notice another pair of footsteps until the figure’s glow was already upon him. Whirling around, his cloak slid from his shoulders and down to the rock below. From the road, Jaina watched him; her hand wrapped around the hilt of her staff, its blue light forming a halo around her: ice to shatter the tepid air. Her white hair flashed like a specter. 

“Jaina.” He greeted with a nod. For a moment, she stayed frozen in place, the hand around her staff tightening.

There was a pause, and then, in a voice betraying her weariness, low and monotone: “Oh, Varian. It’s you.”

“It’s me.” 

He didn’t dare ask why she had been wandering; the lines creasing her face, the shadows beneath her eyes as her staff shined its glow upon her, told more than enough. He simply rose, then moved to the left, wordlessly offering her a seat. She took it. Sticking the shaft of her weapon into the ground and sinking down onto the boulder, she turned her eyes to the moon overhead, and let out a breath. 

“I’ve had trouble sleeping,” she said after a pause. Her fingers balled up in her lap. 

He nodded. Nightmares— haunting visions of the dead, of a life that could never be reclaimed— were something he understood all too well. After the burning of Stormwind, he had never again known a happy dream, as even the steady presence of his father or the warmth of his mother were doomed to fade the moment he opened his eyes. 

And as if Jaina could read his thoughts, could see the inferno billowing through corridors and trapping the innocent behind its blasts, she soon added, “I dreamed of Theramore.”

“The orcs have taken much from us,” he followed, his tone soft and honest rather than bitter. He assumed Jaina would understand, and she seemed to, given the way she straightened her shoulders and flashed a glance in his direction. 

Her voice, though faint, hung in the space between them: a hollow sound. “It’s time they gave us something back.”

“You have the right to be angry, Jaina.”

“I know.” Now her words were little more than an exhale of breath, reclaimed with an inhale as soon as they left her lips. “And I am. I don’t trust them. I never will.”

Varian pulled his cloak back up around his shoulders. “And yet you’re still here.”

“Because I believe Anduin’s visions, and the rumblings Khadgar has heard among the Legion. I know the demons are returning and I can’t bear to see another city destroyed. Not Dalaran, or Stormwind, or even Vol’jin’s Orgrimmar. I won’t let the demons tear down everything we’ve worked to build.”

He turned to her, this time searching the lines of her face. Turning his own concern to comfort, he rested a hand on her shoulder, and saw her eyes widen and soften. “And so you’re here?”

“Yes. That is my reason.”

He nodded, giving her silence and space to continue. It took a few moments, and it wasn’t until another howl rose up from the canyon behind them— a sound that made her tense beneath Varian’s touch, the muscles of her shoulder jolting on reflex— that she seemed to put thoughts into words. In a voice so quiet it might have faded in the breeze, she added:

“I don’t know if I can do this, though.”

“That’s fine, Jaina,” he tried to reassure her, his own voice jarringly loud in its desperation. She continued as if she hadn’t heard him.

“I don’t know if I can serve Stormwind while he sits on the throne. It may be best for Azeroth, but it isn’t best for me.”

“I know,” he repeated. “I understand.”

At that, silence descended between them, spreading its cool fingers like the deepening night. The moon all but disappeared behind the mountains, and greys darkened, grasping at the edges of light that surrounded the Archmage. Varian, too, slipped into gloom. 

His thoughts turned to the Keep, his chamber, the throne room: spaces he’d soon share with Garrosh. Provided one of them didn’t die in the process, they’d be spending their lives together, learning to exist beside one another, and the thought filled Varian with dread. His stomach plummeting, he clutched the neck of his cloak, and summoned every ounce of stoicism he had in his being. Luckily, the shadows made up for the flaws in his disguise.

Turning his thoughts to the Light— so distant here, it seemed, at night in a foreign land— he offered a rare prayer, pleading for strength and guidance. For the conviction to believe in his son’s visions, for the compassion to let his friend. So much was on the line—wisdom or failure waited between Orcish lines of the treaty that had sealed their fate.

And all he could do was look at the moon, only a halo, now, over the ridge of the mountains, and think of what they had lost.

____________________

By dusk the next night the chill had set in. A cold wind blew down the mountains and howled through the valley, making the torches lighting their path quiver and dance. But that didn’t seem to have deterred the Warsong, Varian mused, as the drumming around him reached a crescendo. He tried not to think of the last time he heard drumming like that; the last thing he needed were memories of his arena days coming to haunt him on the day of his wedding.

Though if he were being honest, that night wasn’t much different than his first turn in the arena. His breath caught in his throat as the orcs lined up to stare, cheering as his party passed, pushing him forward to meet a foe who would likely spare him no mercy…

The king’s shoulders tensed. He shook his head, willing the thought from his mind. First he had to get through the ceremony, and then he could worry about _that_.

“My king,” Valeera murmured, sidling up to him and trying to catch his eye. Varian shot her a look, but for a moment didn’t say more than that. If he spoke now, he worried, the strain in his voice might give him away.

She continued without prompting, seeming to understand. “They say that you will be blessed by a shaman at the ritual grounds, and then you and Garrosh will, ah—” She paused and coughed, and when she spoke again it sounded like she was trying to say everything at once. “You and Garrosh will go to a tent just beyond the ritual grounds to consummate.”

Varian felt the blood drain from his cheeks. He swallowed and pursed his lips together, managing a small, almost strangled “I see.”

“And then we’ll be waiting for you at the feast.”

“So I have to come back out and face everyone knowing what I just—?”

“At least if he tries anything the rest of us will be there to help!”

It was clear she hadn’t thought before speaking; her outburst, so uncharacteristic, lingered in the space between them, all but stealing the words from Varian’s lips. He squared his shoulders and drew in a breath, but it was hardly enough to fight back his concerns, and his friends’, at that.

It was hardly enough to deny the real danger that meeting Garrosh like this could bring.

Varian could count on one hand the times he had been alone with the orc. The first time was outside of his tent at the tournament; Garrosh had followed him back for a fight, and they had scuffled, standing down only after Jaina ran over and demanded Varian give up. The second was in Ashenvale: Again they had fought, but this time there was no benevolent force to intercede, leaving both of them angry and battered and looking for blood.

And then there was Orgrimmar: that briefest of moments after stopping Thrall’s hammer when Varian tried to get Garrosh back on his feet. Their eyes had met. He hadn’t known what to say.

Back then he wanted to believe in Garrosh’s goodness, but after the trial, after the things he had shouted, the hell he had unleashed, maybe Varian had been wrong all along.

And if so, he was walking into the arms of a beast.

They reached the end of the road and stepped into a clearing where the crowd had gathered around a central fire. The first person he saw was Grom, standing at the head of the group with a farseer on one side and Garrosh— almost unrecognizable with a wolf’s pelt over his head and his jaw clenched— on the other. In the fading light, the shadows on his face became more pronounced; he looked older, tired. The scars from Go’el’s attack cut a jagged line across his face.

He glanced up for a moment and their eyes met. Varian grimaced. Garrosh’s lips curled into a scowl.

Grommash interrupted, and if he caught the look, this time he didn’t acknowledge it. “Step forward, King Wrynn.” Silence descended on the crowd. His voice echoed through Grommash’ar and it felt as if every eye in the valley was upon them, upon Varian as he swallowed and struggled to walk forward with dignity. 

But when he brushed past Garrosh and their arms touched a chill swept over his back. His lips went numb. His stomach clenched.

Nausea and nerves passed through him in turn, and the Orcish charm leaving the farseer’s lips might as well have been the howl of the wind.

The halo of firelight spread out its glow, falling on human and orc alike. The first person to meet Varian’s eye was Genn, who just nodded, once, slowly, and bowed his head, as if even he didn’t know what to say.

And then there was Khadgar. The look on his face was wry, but when he caught Varian staring his lips softened into what was clearly supposed to be a smile. It was Khadgar who had come to him that morning to talk him through the ritual, to ask him, stilted and awkward, if he understood what the orc would expect from him. Varian felt himself blushing again at the thought. Of course he knew what Garrosh was planning to do, but hearing it from Khadgar, from his father’s friend—

He never once thought he’d have to tell Khadgar what he had and had not done to his ass, but here they were. Marrying Tiffin was frustrating, but at least he knew Tiffin didn’t intend to hurt him.

Varian felt his lips tense to a scowl as Garrosh shifted beside him. The orc’s chant went on for what could have been minutes or hours, and Varian knew that at any moment it could cease and then he and Garrosh would be alone. Would the orc take pleasure in holding him down? He had seen the orcs do as bad or worse during the sack of Stormwind, and this was _Garrosh_. He hated him. 

He had nearly murdered his son and destroyed his city, and now he would have Varian naked and vulnerable. He had won, and Varian hated it.

But then his eyes fell on Anduin. The prince strained up on his toes to see over the bonfire, his face alight with what could have been concern or empathy. The orcs had given him some kind of beaded headdress, and it shivered and swung whenever he turned his head to glance between his father and the shaman. No matter what Garrosh did to him, Varian told himself, at least it wasn’t Anduin going into the tent that night.

It was that thought he clung to as the last rays of light slipped over the lip of the valley and the shaman’s chanting ceased with a gust of smoke. 

As soon as silence came, he felt Garrosh turn towards him; there was no ignoring his presence. His shadow passed over Varian’s face, and he loomed above him, quiet, a little…restrained, Varian found himself thinking, but immediately dismissed it as show. The orc’s fingers wrapped around his arm, and then they took off towards the tent at the back of the canyon. 

Varian felt the crowd’s stare on his shoulders, felt a ripple of whispers and nerves and the excited shifting of drums that threatened to burst into song, but he didn’t dare look back. Garrosh lifted the leather flap and he followed the orc over the threshold.

The tent was dark except for a brazier at the opposite end of the room. Furs had been laid out around it, and, Varian soon realized, the space could be divided in two by a kind of curtain that ran diagonal from one corner to the other. Garrosh reached for the cord holding the fabric back, and, as he unloosed it, he finally spoke.

“They’re going to check on us,” he explained in a low voice, switching to Common. 

“Great,” Varian felt the blood rush to his cheeks, but hid it by ducking under the flap, hoping the gesture was enough to mask it. He sat down on the pile of furs, refusing to look up at Garrosh on his way in.

The orc murmured and shook his head; when he spoke again, his tone was quieter and almost…defensive. “I told them we needed the tent.”

Varian arched his brow.

“They didn’t think you’d go through with it. They wanted to watch. I told them no.”

“That’s great, Garrosh,” Varian did nothing to hide his sigh. Leaning back on the furs, he crossed his arms and stared him down. Something kicked up inside him— that old urge to bicker, that spark that drove them to scuffle and yell and trade insults back at the tournament grounds— only now it was desperation, not simple annoyance, that stoked it to life. He couldn’t let the orc see his fear. He couldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“I told them humans get embarrassed easily.”

“Trust me, this couldn’t get any more embarrassing.”

Even in the shadows, Varian caught Garrosh’s features contorting into…a glare, perhaps, or something akin to it. The orc turned away and fumbled with a bowl by the edge of the ‘bed.’ As if to prove his point, Varian tugged off his leather tunic and tossed it to the side. 

When Garrosh turned back and their eyes met, however, there was something else in his gaze. Something quiet and… earnest. It flickered, then faded, gone almost before Varian could process what he had seen. “I didn’t ask for this, either,” Garrosh explained, but Varian shook his head. He would have preferred shouting to whatever the orc was playing at now.

“Just get on with… whatever you’re going to do. I’m not going to stop you.”

“Fine,” Garrosh barked, and the glare came back. Varian welcomed it, his own lip curling in disgust as the orc reached down and unlatched his belt, his eyes trying desperately not to notice how large the orc was, even soft, under the lacings of his pants. 

He was only partially successful; his breath caught in his throat, and he turned away. He had endured pain and debasement in the arenas. He had been wounded by Garrosh himself on the battlefield. He could handle whatever the orc threw at him, he tried to tell himself, but that didn’t stop his fingers from shaking as they balled up into the fur at his sides.

Varian didn’t look up again until Garrosh was finished unlacing his pants and rolling them down his hips. Now completely exposed, his cock started to swell, and Varian caught the glimmer of something metallic in the brazier’s crackling light. He soon found the source: a row of bars down the underside of Garrosh’s shaft and a ring peeking out through his foreskin, and he couldn’t help but look. Surprised, alarmed, maybe, but a little bit fascinated. 

Before he knew it, he was staring at Garrosh’s cock. 

And Garrosh noticed. 

A smirk crossed the orc’s lips, but as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, Varian was ready to cut him off. “What did you do to yourself?”

“What do you mean?” 

Varian let out a breath and straightened his shoulders, guarded again, staring down Garrosh with level eyes. “The spikes in your dick,” he used a crude Orcish expletive he had learned, he supposed, from Reghar. 

And it had the desired effect. Garrosh’s eyes widened, and he gritted his teeth. Varian might have caught the orc blushing, though he couldn’t be sure in the shadows. “Just lay back,” he finally snapped, and, as if to make his point, pressed his hand against Varian’s chest. Not hard enough to push, but only to guide him, to ease him down onto the floor. 

His skin was hot against Varian’s and his fingers all but spanned from pec to pec. Varian shivered in spite of himself. And again, Garrosh definitely noticed. 

As if to make some kind of point, his fingers lingered a moment too long, toying with Varian’s hair then sliding over to thumb at his nipple. A growl rolled on the back of Varian’s tongue. He arched his back, then caught himself, all but slamming back down. His nerves, now alight with the strange sensation, tingled long after Garrosh stopped teasing. How long had it been since anyone touched him like that?

But this was Garrosh, he reminded himself. Brows knitting together, he exhaled, hard, and managed to hiss through his breath. “Well, get on with it.”

“Fine.” The orc snapped, and from the way he clenched his jaw, he clearly had more to say. But he seemed to give up, on the bickering but also the touching, simply sitting back on his heels and staring down at him, as if waiting for him to make the next move.

But Varian just met his stare with an icy look. An unspoken challenge passed between them. The firelight danced in Garrosh’s eyes, and Varian held his breath.

“Your pants,” Garrosh prompted, finally, and at once the human realized his look had been an expectant one.

Heat flooded his cheeks, but by the time he tried to respond Garrosh’s hands were back on him, fingertips pressed against his abdomen, eyes trained on his face. “Here,” the orc mumbled, and started to fumble with the latch on his belt, but Varian swatted him away. There was a sharp slap. Garrosh withdrew. Varian used unlacing as an excuse to break the orc’s stare.

But he could feel Garrosh watching as he opened his pants and lifted his hips to remove them. He could feel Garrosh shifting his weight to avoid his legs as he curled his knees up into his chest. Maybe if he just _rolled over_ he wouldn’t be so keenly aware of the orc’s eyes. Maybe if he could stare at the ground and open his legs they’d be done with this frustrating foreplay that Garrosh seemed so intent on.

Maybe if he just moved he could steel himself and get this over and done so he could go back to pretending everything would be okay.

Intent on this, he dug his heels back into the ground and used the leverage to arc up his back. But just as he thought he could get out from under him, Garrosh’s hands pressed back on his chest and his knees forced his legs back to straight. Garrosh moved to straddle him. His palm traced a line from his abdomen down to his still-soft cock and his fingers wrapped around it. Any will to recoil died as a cry rose to his lips.

“What—?” He all but choked. He hoped the strangled sound would be mistaken for disgust, but he knew better than to cling to that. With Garrosh’s cock pressed flush against his and his palm tight against the base of his shaft, he knew he looked flustered at best, and at worst…tamed. He jerked his head to the side and willed his breath to even.

But that was hopeless, and he knew it. With Garrosh stroking him, rubbing them together, the metallic bumps on his cock rolling and teasing against him, his body started to rebel. Blood rushed between his legs; Garrosh held them tighter, and it was only when Varian started to feel the differences— Garrosh’s girth, the heat of his skin and the way he already leaked against Varian’s head— that he started to come to his senses. 

He squeezed his eyes closed and threw back his head. His protest was strained but audible. A gasp, and then—

“What are you doing, Garrosh? Just get on with it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” 

“Can’t get on if you’re soft.”

_What?_

He opened his eyes and looked down just in time to see Garrosh lifting the bowl and drizzling oil onto the head of his half-erect cock. It was cool and wet as it rolled down the length of his shaft; Garrosh caught it before it dripped down to his balls, instead wetting his palm with it, using it to work him up to full hardness. The pieces started to fall into place. Feeling started to take over, and Varian yielded, a moan escaping his lips.

And then Garrosh shifted his weight. Something hot and _impossibly tight_ wrapped around him. Garrosh sank down with a groan, and his own moan turned to a cry:

“ _Fuck!_ ” 

“Mhn, Wrynn…”

He hadn’t been ready for that: not for the way Garrosh’s body would clench around him, not for the way he would roll his hips forward and splay his hand across Varian’s chest. Garrosh started to rock, and every movement, every slight change in pressure, sparked Varian’s body to life. His cock throbbed inside of him. His chest rose and fell beneath Garrosh’s palm, and as he tilted his head to look up at the tent’s ceiling, he found it hard to care, this time, about how vulnerable he must look.

It was hard to care with Garrosh wrapping around him, and his body falling into a practiced rhythm of moans and thrusts down on Varian’s shaft. 

With their bodies moving together it was hard to tell where Garrosh’s grunts stopped and his own began. He lost track of everything but his heat, and even when he heard a noise to his left he didn’t bother to look away. Instead he kept his eyes on Garrosh’s body. 

He noticed everything but nothing— the rise of his chest when he murmured his name bled together with the wetness of his cock against his belly, and the clench of his ass around him with the way Varian’s own balls tightened beneath him. The firelight played on his scars and tattoos. Varian’s fingers twisted up in the furs at his side, only to be loosened, guided away with Garrosh’s hand to be pressed against the base of the orc’s shaft.

“Touch me.” Varian had already complied by the time Garrosh made his request. Sliding his palm up his bar-studded shaft and pressing his foreskin up over the head, Varian worked, but struggled, to keep his pace.

But what he lacked in finesse he made up for with earnestness, and Garrosh didn’t seem to mind. 

The orc slammed down onto his cock. Varian cried out again, and this time Garrosh joined him. His breath caught in his throat and he moaned— no, whined— Varian’s name loud enough to be heard by anyone waiting beyond the partition. The sound was too much for Varian, and he struggled to keep control of the tension building inside him. 

It had been so long, too long, since he had been inside someone else, and the orc’s heat, his tightness, the rise and fall of his muscular body and the way his eyes flashed gold in the light of the flames, was all too much for the king to take in. He thrust up once; Garrosh’s body shuddered. His mind could no longer keep up with his hips, and all he knew was how much he wanted that warmth, that release.

And Garrosh or not, that need pushed him over the edge.

The tension inside him unfurled, and he came hard up into the orc’s body. His back arced. His breath died, and then Garrosh’s fingers were there to work his hand, to drag his palm forward around his shaft and to keep his arm steady even as the rest of him threatened to collapse. Breath ragged and eyes closed, he kept going, working until Garrosh’s cum splattered between his fingers and leaked across his abdomen.

Finally, he could let himself go.

A wave of pleasure washed over him, and Garrosh leaned down. His breath— stilted and spent— tickled the human’s cheek, but Varian only nodded and faded into that warmth.

Of the furs pressed against his back, the fire crackling at his side. Of Garrosh’s cum on his skin and the heat of his body still wrapped tight around his softening cock.

____________________

The feast passed with little incident, but still Garrosh couldn’t help notice how guarded Varian had become. From the looks he exchanged with the other Alliance leaders when they returned from the tent— a look that seemed to say ‘I’m still alive,’ as if Garrosh would have done anything to jeopardize the treaty!— to his refusal of any ale or whiskey while they ate, it seemed the king was preparing for some kind of attack. It was clear what they all still thought of him, but his new mate didn’t need to be so _obvious_ about it.

He tried to catch Varian’s eye as they left the feasting grounds and headed up to his chamber, but the king took interest in everything but his face. He glanced up at the stars as they rounded the bend towards Garrosh’s tower, and stared down into the fighting pits on their way up the hill. Even Garrosh’s old throne distracted him when they met the guards at the door.

He knew, of course, what Varian thought about all this. He thought this was somehow Garrosh’s idea, like marrying Anduin and moving to Stormwind had been the final step in his master plan. He seemed to think Garrosh took pleasure in humiliating him, and if he let down his guard the orc would be on him, hurting him, debasing him.

The thought made Garrosh growl and grit his teeth behind pursed lips. So much for thinking Garrosh could change. He wondered how much else the Wrynns had said of him that they didn’t really believe.

Exasperated, he followed Varian up the winding ramp to his room. At the door, he had to reach around him to unlock it, and it was hard to ignore the way Varian’s shoulders tensed. He jerked his wrist to turn the key then withdrew as if it had burned him. Varian made a non-committal sound and pushed in over the threshold. 

The metallic squeak of the hinges seemed to summon Raika and Kotna from their sleep, and they came dashing, tails wagging and front paws scratching at the back of the door as Varian tried to ease it open. Raika pawed at Varian’s leg, and Kotna panted and circled; the human let out a noise. Brows raised, he finally looked Garrosh in the eye.

“These are yours?”

 _This is my room, isn’t it, Wrynn_? He wanted to quip, but he knew he had to try to contain it. Leaning down, he scooped up Raika to spare Varian’s shins any scratching. “Yes. They’re mine.”

“Will you be bringing them with you, then?”

“I mean—”

But Varian cut him off. “I like dogs,” he offered the barest hint of a smile, leaning down to pet Kotna between the ears. The pup looked up at him and wagged her tail, nuzzling her nose against his palm, his wrist, anywhere else she could reach. For a moment— just a moment, like the moment they had shared on the furs in the tent when Varian was too spent to argue— the king started to relax.

But then Varian looked around and all of that seemed to change.

Garrosh had already taken a seat on the edge of his bed. Raika squirmed free from his arms to play on the pile of pillows, while Garrosh leaned down to unlatch his boots. Varian merely lingered a few feet away, watching them, opening his mouth, then shutting it, as if he were trying to find the words to say. And then, finally, he declared: “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Garrosh looked up at him and sighed. The bed was more than large enough for the two of them, and it was human-style, at that. Garrosh had grown too fond of raised beds during his time in Orgrimmar to even keep a sleeping mat now, and he knew Varian wasn’t used to sleeping like that. He shook his head. His lips pursed around his tusks.

“There’s enough space on the bed,” he insisted.

“I want to sleep on the floor.”

“What do you think I’m going to do to you, Wrynn? I want you to tell me.” He hadn’t meant to shout, but his voice echoed off the metal walls of the Keep, all but ringing in the space between them. Kotna yipped and padded off toward the brazier.

Varian watched her go rather than turning back to meet his gaze. “I want to sleep on the floor,” he explained, again, curtness betraying his anger. Varian had always been like this, and it _got_ to him. His bare feet hit the ground and he closed the space between them.

“I already fucked myself on you. I’m not going to touch you if you don’t want me to. I’m not like that, Wrynn. I’m not going to stab my new mate in his sleep.”

The words seemed to affect him in ways Garrosh hadn’t anticipated. Even in the firelight, it was clear he was blushing: blood that soon drained from his cheeks at Garrosh’s last declaration. Varian swallowed; Garrosh kept himself an arm’s length away. Silence set in between them, and then, sighing, Garrosh made up his mind:

“You take the bed. Give me a pillow and a fur and I’ll sleep by the fire.”

“Garrosh, if you’re trying to _guilt me_ —”

“Your people aren’t used to it,” he tried to growl, but it ended up sounding less angry than resigned. “Just take the bed while you’re here.” As if to make his point, he turned back and yanked a pillow off the mattress, tossing it over by the brazier, then reaching for a fur to cover his chest.

It seemed for a moment like Varian might fight— lingering in the middle of the room too long, shifting his weight before finally giving in and unlatching his belt. Garrosh turned away to strip off his own pants, and by the time he glanced back Varian was already under the covers. It was unclear how much or little clothing he had removed, but Garrosh didn’t let his stare linger. 

Instead, he crawled under his pelt and tried his best to get settled. The sound of Varian fidgeting under the covers and tossing about on the mattress was even more uncomfortable than the hard wood beneath his back, but he closed his eyes and tried to let sleep wash over him. Raika and Kotna soon bounced back over to curl up atop his chest, and he could have sworn, as he was starting to drift off, that Varian sat up in his bed to look over at him.

But tried his best to forget and pass one last restful night in his keep. Focusing on the crackle of fire, the soft rumble of voices in the distance clinging to the last dregs of the celebration, the two pups squirming against his skin, it was easy to forget, for a moment, where he was heading.

It was easy to forget he’d be back on Azeroth, a monster and a war criminal, standing before the humans and enduring shouts and growls he knew he deserved. He could almost will it from his mind, except for the way Varian sat and watched him sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

It took four days for their retinue to make the journey from Nagrand to the portals his commander had set up in Shadowmoon Valley, and each day felt more uncomfortable than the last. Garrosh traveled beside him mostly in silence, but every night when the lamps were extinguished and he had taken up space on the floor, the orc started trying to make conversation, about Draenor, about humans, about his assumptions of Stormwind—

Stormwind. At least the trip had bought him some time to warn the people of Stormwind. He had sent Anduin and Genn ahead three nights ago, and by now they would have already called a council of nobles and reporters alike to explain what was coming. He hoped, at least, they’d save their rioting for Varian’s return. The last thing he wanted was for Anduin to get stuck quelling a rebellion without him.

The thought kept him up at night. As if nightmares about Grom razing his city to the ground— a threat that felt all the more real with his even more violent son sleeping on the floor beside him— weren’t enough, now he was back to worrying that his own people would murder his son in his absence. 

Westfall would seize the chance to break from the kingdom, claiming the alliance through Tiffin had become null and void; Darnassus and Gilneas might refuse to sit at Alliance tables; Vol’jin might demand Garrosh’s head. 

Garrosh himself could lead his father’s army into the city and leave it, again, in flames.

But he wouldn’t, Varian knew, secretly, as he listened to him softly snore on the ground beside him. Garrosh was many things, but he wasn’t some kind of traitor. 

Varian finally found sleep in the grey hours of morning, and when he woke up again, he was keenly, no, horrifyingly aware of a certain…development that had sprung up when he let down his guard. The front of his sleep pants tented, and beneath them, his cock throbbed, frustrating, unexplainable. He breathed and willed it to cooperate, but it wouldn’t back down.

He felt heat flood his cheeks and an ache set in between his legs. Turning and looking towards the wash basin at the other end of the tent, he realized light was already starting to chase back the shadows, and any plan of escape would take him right by the stirring orc at the side of his bed. 

But he had to try, he decided, while Garrosh was mostly asleep, and with a growl he swung his feet off the bed and hurried across the room. And he almost made it, too, until he turned on the stove to warm his tub and looked around for the basin of water his attendants had brought in the night before.

There was a metallic ‘png’ as the device sparked to life, and, without warning, Garrosh sat up from his mat.

“Wrynn?” 

He could feel the orc’s eyes on his back, but he didn’t dare turn to meet them. “I’m taking a bath. Go back to sleep.”

“It’s early.”

“I know. That’s why I said, ‘Go back to sleep.’”

But Garrosh wasn’t buying it, and he knew as much. Even with his back turned, it was hard to get the water poured into his tub and the tub running, let alone removing his pants, without Garrosh figuring out the problem. 

He had just stepped out of his clothes and swung one foot into the water when Garrosh let out a grunt. Before he had time to snap and defend himself from the orc’s gaze, he spoke up, simply, as if it were some kind of every day offer:

“I can take care of that.”

“What do you mean?” It was defensive— the way the words tumbled from his lips, the sharp desperation as he shot Garrosh a look— but what could he do? The orc watching only made his problem worse, and that voice, that suggestion…his cock throbbed, and a growl built low in his throat.

“Well?” He managed to gasp, but Garrosh just kept looking.

“You don’t have to jack off in the tub. You have a mate.”

“I wasn’t going to—” _Mate._ The word made his ears burn, and his mind went back to that night in the tent, to the heat of Garrosh’s body. To the way the orc had left him completely undone and unraveled, and the orcish cum that had splattered across his chest. His fingers shook as he clutched the lip of the tub. Behind him, he heard Garrosh shifting his weight.

“We might not have time for me to, uh—”

“Fine. I’ll suck you off, then.”

At that, he had to look. Stepping his leg back out of the tub and turning, slowly, to face the orc’s eyes— cock still very much hard and obvious even in the early morning light— he swallowed and managed a nod. He felt exposed; there was no mistaking where Garrosh’s eyes had rested, and as he waited, he mumbled, awkward and almost too quiet to hear. “Are you sure?”

“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have offered,” Garrosh sat up on his knees and looked towards the bed, resting his hand on the edge of the mattress. “Come here.”

“You act like it’s nothing,” Varian’s voice was still low, but he needed to know why this was so _easy_ for him. How could Garrosh talk like this, make these offers to him, without even the barest hint of a blush on his cheeks? Why wasn’t he nervous? Why didn’t he fumble and try not to look?

“It isn’t.” The orc merely snorted. Varian’s ire started to rise. He gritted his teeth and sat down, but when Garrosh crawled between his legs and wrapped his hand around the base of Varian’s cock, his glare left only a gasp in its wake. 

Tiffin had done it once or twice, but back then it always been stressful. He was supposed to father a son, and instead he’d sit on their bed grim-faced and limp, not sure how to explain his lack of interest without starting a war. She’d crawl between his legs, and he’d pretend the blonde head bobbing on his cock belonged to… _somebody else_. And then guilt would set in, and tell her to stop. She’d sit back and stare. He hardly remembered the feeling so much as the shame that had come in its wake.

But this time there was no pretending. No clinging to memories of Lordaeron to keep his dick from shrinking away from his partner’s touch. There was only Garrosh’s mouth— thick lips and tusks pressing around him and the wetness of his tongue against the underside of his shaft. There was only the orc’s breath tickling his hair, and the back of his throat swallowing around the head of his cock.

And Varian let out a cry. 

Relief came quickly: easily, too, once Varian let himself relax. With Garrosh sliding his lips from his head to his base, tonguing at his slit, taking him all in one practiced swallow, it was hard not to give in and enjoy himself. The orc knew what he was doing; falling into a rhythm, he sucked and worked him and moaned low against his skin. His nose pressed into his hair, and he looked up at Varian with a satisfied smirk. 

That smile alone was enough to leave Varian weak, and he didn’t bother to hide it. Biting his lip, he threw back his head and gasped. His fingers curled up in the sheets; his cock twitched in Garrosh’s mouth, and before he could warn him he was cumming hard into the back of his mouth. But Garrosh neither coughed or choked, instead taking it, still grinning as he slid himself back onto his heels and licked his slit clean, never once breaking eye contact or letting that smug satisfaction fade from his face.

Instead he just murmured, and looked up at him. Grinning. Pleased. The orc licked his lips, and Varian stared. His labored breaths punctuated the silence. His shudder betrayed him, saying more than his words could have managed.

____________________

They arrived in Stormwind later that day. Snuck in through a hidden entrance beyond the city walls, Garrosh didn’t fully process where they were headed until they had emerged through a tunnel into the heart of the Keep. There was no fanfare or welcoming retinue, but rather a few guards standing stiff at the door and staring. Garrosh scowled and avoided their gaze, sticking close, maybe too close, to Varian.

But then he was shuffled off up the stairs. While Varian parted from the group at the throne room, the guard grunted a quick “this way” and led him, instead, up several floors to a hallway flanked by portraits. They passed by one that looked like Varian and Anduin. Garrosh paid it a glance, but then they had stop at the door to its right. 

The guard turned the key and they shuffled him in to a half-circle room with a canopy bed. Now the paintings that watched him were ladies, all adorned with glittering crowns and jewels and posed with gowns spread around them. Garrosh raised his brow, but at first he didn’t say anything. He walked over to the edge of the bed and took a seat as the guards filed in with Raika and Kotna in tow.

Scooping up one of the pups in his arm, he watched them work in silence: carrying in his trunk, opening it and setting out his pelts and the ivory bowls his father had given as “dowry,” refusing his help even when he circled around them and tried to reach in for his clothes. Nobody seemed to want to look at him, but he hadn’t expected much less. With a sigh, he carried Raika over to the window and stared at the courtyard below.

One of the guards brushed past him with his spare pair of pants and opened the armoire at his side. Glancing over, he realized it was completely empty. But that couldn’t be true. Varian’s things had to be somewhere. With a growl that made the soldier jump, he whirled around, searching the room for some hint of the other man, until—

“Where are Varian’s things?”

The same guard who had tensed now dropped his pants. Struggling to stand at attention, he flashed the other soldiers a desperate look. But they all had their eyes fixed on Garrosh.

“Sir, this is the queen’s chamber.”

Garrosh bristled at that. Why would the queen have her own chamber, and, more importantly, why would they stick the king’s husband in it? “What do you mean? I’m staying with Varian.”

“But sir,” Garrosh wondered why all of Varian’s attendants seemed so meek. It only annoyed him more, and he took a step forward, flashing his teeth and watching the cluster tense. One of them— a smaller man wearing a white and gold tabard— clenched his fingers around the lip of his trunk until his knuckles turned white.

A blonde woman beside him stepped forward, trying her voice again. “Sir, this is queen’s chamber. I know you aren’t a queen, but it’s customary. The royal consort always has their own space.”

“But I’ll be sleeping in Varian’s room?” He pushed. They weren’t going to tell him this was for his own good. No. He wouldn’t be shamed by his mate like this. 

Raika squirmed out of his arms and he set her down. As he bent over, the group seemed to let out a collective exhale, but when he returned again to his full height the entire guard had their hands on their weapons. Was this the kind of welcome Varian wanted to give him? Treating him like a prisoner, locking him in a separate room, arming his guards against him? 

He wouldn’t stand for it. Without waiting for their response, he pushed through and took off stomping down the hallway, hurrying, ignoring the clinking of armor as the guards chased after him.

The treaty had said he was _not_ t a prisoner, and whether Garrosh believed he deserved that or not, the last thing he needed was Wrynn shaming him and tricking him against his father’s wishes. He huffed. All but pushing over a soldier on his way through the archway, he hurried into the throne room where he had seen Varian disappear.

And then he heard voices: Varian’s, Genn’s, and somebody’s he didn’t recognize, muffled by one of the doors surrounding the circular chamber. They grew more intelligible as he got closer. 

They were yelling, and, unsurprisingly, they were talking about him.

“You realize that sex with an orc is still illegal? Article 143 of the Royal Decree of 597 amended the ‘Prohibition Against Sexual Intercourse with Inferior Races’ to include—” 

“Then what do you plan to do? Call for my resignation. I’ve already had sex with him.”

Somebody gasped. Garrosh found himself unable to move. Blood flooded his cheeks, and his stomach clenched. _Inferior races?_ What? Like he was some kind of _beast?_

Shame sank to nausea, and nausea churned to anger. How _dare_ they insult him like this? 

“Look,” Varian sighed, and even through the closed door Garrosh could feel his lips twisting into a frown. “Anduin has tried to get me to strike that decree for years. It’s inappropriate. It was written during a different time. How would we explain ourselves if Thrall found out about it? Or Vol’jin?”

“We’d say that they’re still our enemies, and any kind of _relation_ with them is treason. Surely they must feel the same.”

“Maybe they do,” Garrosh was surprised to hear Genn, this time, coming to Varian’s defense. “But the Iron Horde are our allies now, for better or for worse. It’s not as if Varian brought _Sylvanas_ here as his bride.”

Garrosh liked the way the worgen spat out her name. His fingers had almost unclenched at his sides, but then someone else cut in, and his anger was back as quickly as it had gone:

“I would have rather he brought Sylvanas! At least she can be reasoned with. She’s less of a monster than he is. At least she—” 

He’d heard enough. Grabbing the door handle, he yanked it open, and the guards who had clustered under the archway all bolted upright at the sound. He ignored them, ignored their wide-eyed stares and the ash-faced room of nobles beyond. 

All he cared about was finding Varian, and when he did, all the anger and shame and frustration in his throat rose to a shout: “I need to talk to you. Right now!”

A tremble passed through the velvet banners on the wall and made the windowpanes shake. Varian gaped open-mouth for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed, his brow knitting together.

“I’m a little _busy_ here, Garrosh,” he hissed. “Where are your guards? I told them to get you settled in your room.”

“My room?” So Varian had intended it. This hadn’t been some kind of misunderstanding. Forgetting where they were, forgetting the crowd and the bickering and the satisfied looks that were likely crossing the noble faces behind him, he glared and felt his face growing hot. He huffed, no, sputtered, and the words that came out this time were in his native tongue:

“Why not your room? Aren’t you my mate? Are you keeping someone else in there? Who is it, Wrynn? Is it Jaina? Who? Tell me! Aren’t you my mate?”

“ _What?_ ” It was hard to tell where his rage ended and his shock began. Eyes wide, cheeks white, the king stared and then slammed his hand down onto the arm of a chair. His mouth fell slack; he immediately clenched it closed.

And when he spoke it came as a growl, like a wolf surrounded but standing its ground. “We will talk about this later, upstairs. Where are your guards? Go up to your room, and we’ll—” 

“I’ll go up to your room, Wrynn. Our room.” He hadn’t meant for it to sound so much like a threat, but from the flash in Varian’s eyes, it was clear the king had taken it as a challenge.

“You most certainly _will not_.” Without warning, he grabbed at Garrosh’s arm. The orc shook him away, but then Varian pressed his hand against his shoulder and Garrosh backed down. All too conscious of the humans murmuring around him and Varian’s gloved hand pressed against his skin, he allowed his mate to lead him back through the doorway and into the throne room beyond.

As soon as they were out of sight, Varian tried again: his voice was still strained, but most of the edge was gone. “Garrosh, I am trying to deal with this situation, all right? Please go up to your room, unpack your things, get a book from the royal library if you want. We can discuss this another day.”

_Another day_. Garrosh exhaled, and his shoulders— so tense a moment before, so ready to fight— slumped as he let down his guard. He watched Varian’s face, looking for understanding, but all he found there was weary frustration. Looking down, he drew in a breath. When he glanced up again, the human’s eyes were unchanged. 

“It’s shameful to me,” he insisted in one last, almost desperate, attempt to explain. 

“It’s how we do things in Stormwind. You were the one who wanted to come here. Now you need to live by our rules.”

“Orcs stay with their mates. Orcs—”

“But I’m not an orc, am I, Garrosh? This isn’t an Orcish city, no matter how hard your father tried to make it one.”

His voice was low now, but nevertheless, the comment left Garrosh’s stomach tight. Not wanting to look into Varian’s face, he stared past him towards his gilded throne and the blue-eyed lion watching over them. He had done what his father asked and now he was stuck among humans, with a mate who couldn’t stand him and guards assigned not to protect him, but to keep him at bay.

The realization came all at once, and before he could hold his emotions in check he winced and took a step back. Swallowing audibly, Varian turned away, and it seemed he, too, was trying his best to distract himself.

“The wedding will be in three days,” he switched back to Common to address the guards. Garrosh brushed past him, intent on not looking back until he was out of Varian’s sight. 

“Summon the royal tutors and find one who knows Orcish. He’ll need someone to teach him our table customs and the basic rites of our Church before the ceremony. Tell the kitchens to feed him whatever they’re feeding me. Oh, and Ramsey—”

Garrosh glanced over his shoulder to see the gold-tabard soldier— the one who had seemed so alarmed and frustrated upstairs in his chamber— now snap to attention. “Yes, your Majesty?”

“Please go downstairs to the guardroom and have your assignment changed. I won’t have any of our men from Theramore stuck serving him.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.”

Garrosh sighed and wandered back up the stairs. Past the paintings of nobles, past the canvas of Varian and his blonde-haired bride. He nudged open the door and the wolves came skittering, and when they looked up at him with flattened ears he knew they felt just as alone.

He knelt down and scooped them up in his arms. Biting his upper lip, he held them to his chest and drifted, listless, exhausted, towards the edge of the bed.

“Well,” he mumbled and sat them down on the mattress. “Welcome home.”

____________________

The next day after lunch the tailor arrived, and one day later he returned with a red silk tunic and a golden sash to tie it together. Garrosh sniffed at it, but didn’t complain. At least trying on clothes was better than memorizing forks and glasses with stems thin enough to snap in his fingers. At least it gave him a break from practicing vows in Old Common he could hardly form with his tongue.

The day after that his tutor helped him get dressed. She explained each piece of the outfit and showed him how they unfastened. They allowed him one look in the mirror and then he was off through the hall with guards flanking his sides, down the stairs, and out into the throne room with its doors now opened to the bright mid-day sun. 

A statue of Wrynn himself stared down at them as they made their way through the gates, and then he saw it, finally, his city. Canals lined by storefronts and clusters of humans pressed back by rows of guards. Like the swell of the sea, the mob churned and threatened to spill through their ranks, but the guards drew their swords and stood at attention.

Garrosh’s escort in turn followed suit, and the orc swallowed and straightened his shoulders. He knew all too well that it wasn’t anticipation that agitated them to move.

But the yelling didn’t start until they had turned the first corner and the cathedral came into sight. Unlike the group near the Keep, this crowd was mostly comprised of dwarves and a few soldiers wearing the same white-and-gold tabard that Ramsey had worn: displaced citizens from Theramore, he now understood. They scowled and yelled and for a moment Garrosh felt like he was back at the trial.

“Kill him!” One of them demanded, and a murmur of approval passed through the crowd. “Lock him in jail. You all know what he did to our people.”

“Look at him, dressed like a prince. How dare King Wrynn treat him this way?”

“Did you not hear your king’s address?” Another voice spoke up— a soldier, Garrosh supposed, though it was hard to tell with his back to its source. Just like he had done at the trial, he fought to keep his face indifferent, but it was harder now with nowhere to look but the mob.

“The Legion is coming! We need to endure this. Not just for us, but for Azeroth. Didn’t you hear your king?”

“e’s no king o’mine with Garrosh ‘ellscream at his side! Mark ma’ words, lads, Ironforge won’t stand for this!” 

“They already have. Your king put his name on the treaty. You’re just as fucked as the rest of us. Glory to the Alliance! What a fucking joke.”

“Enough!”

Garrosh was thankful to cross the canal and put the Dwarven District behind him, but by the time they crossed to the other side a crowd of humans were already gritting their teeth, scowling, ready to snap, less rowdy, on a whole, than the merchants, but still just as angry. 

And all he could do was follow his guards around the bend and try to block out the cries. And he would have succeeded, would have made it to the cathedral stairs without any more incident, kept his head high as he stepped through the door and looked his mate in the eyes. It was so close he started to play through the steps in his mind.

But then someone on his right raised his arm and let the mud fly.

It hit him square on his jaw, splattered, and dripped from his chin to the collar of his robe. He froze. The crowd around him stepped back, and a few of them took off running. Hoping it was only water that hit him, he held his breath and forced himself to look down. Just as he glimpsed the damage his escort fought back, and the lieutenant, a woman named Reid, pressed her hand against his arm to bark out a short, “Get him inside! Hurry!”

And with that they took off running. Garrosh climbed the stone stairs at least two at a time, and the soldiers kept up with his pace, not leaving him time to stop and feel shame until they were over the threshold and Garrosh was left huffing and wet and alone with his guards in the narthex. 

A sliver of sunlight fled behind between them as the doors were yanked closed. Silence descended on the group, and behind the stone partition Garrosh could make out the ‘hss’ of shifting garments and a cough, short and discreet, muffled against somebody’s palm.

The wedding was waiting, and he would be _laughed at_ if they saw him like this.

But shame faded to relief as his eyes fell on a basin just beside the church entrance. He pushed past his guards and ran over, splashing his cheeks with clean water, then sinking his head down into it, wetting his collar, scrambling to rub the mud from his chest. A soldier gasped, but nobody stopped him. He was almost done splashing, and then—

“Ahem.”

Garrosh lifted his head from the basin. A human wearing white robes loomed at his side, brows raised, mouth moving as if he were trying to find his voice. He coughed once, then again, then, stunned, whispered, “This way, Garrosh Hellscream. The king is waiting.”

Maybe it was the way the priest said it, or the stunned look in his eyes that betrayed even more than his stilted voice, but Garrosh knew he had trespassed. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and he glared, first at him, then at the guards who stepped to his side. Eyes flashing, he waited for someone to challenge him, but nobody did. 

Giving up, he let out a snort and, trying his best to look composed— soaked face and dirty robe notwithstanding— he followed them into the sanctuary and kept his eyes off his clothes.

The room was empty except for a cluster of guests in the first few rows. Garrosh recognized Anduin’s bright blond head and Genn leering at him as his escort passed. The others seemed like officials, or reporters, maybe. One of them snapped a picture. But all of them, even Prince Anduin, wore dark-colored garments: sitting still and in stark contrast to the colorful light that streamed in through the windows over their heads.

And at the altar, Varian waited in silence. He too had traded his armor for black formal garb, and Garrosh tried his best not to wonder what all this meant. He just pursed his lips around his tusks and drew in a breath. Their eyes met, and Varian’s narrowed.

Solemnity yielded to anger, and Varian clenched his hands at his sides.

____________________

“Here,” Varian opened the door at the end of the hall: a door that led to another winding staircase, and beyond that, an even more ornate door that opened to a circular room Garrosh decided must be above his own chamber.

It was…luxurious, even compared to the rest of the Keep. Where Garrosh had paintings of ladies, Varian’s room had jewel-hilted weapons and mirrors adorned with the lion of Stormwind. His bed sat on a pedestal in the middle of the space, and at was at least twice as wide as Garrosh’s, with blue silk pillows and heraldry carved into its oak headboard. Garrosh stared for a moment, and tried to fight back his rage. 

There was more than enough room for two in that bed. Custom or not, Varian couldn’t deny that.

The crowd had been just as rowdy on their return to the Keep, but at least with Varian at his side no one attacked. Still, he could sense the king getting tenser, his face more rigid and lined by half-contained ire, with every moment he passed by his side. They had been served some food that made him feel sick, and everyone had eaten in silence. And then they adjourned, and with hardly a word, Varian shuffled him back up the stairs.

And now he paid him only a glance before heading to his bathroom to fumble around with a vial he sat on the tub. 

Garrosh sighed and unloosed the sash holding his tunic in place. At least he could finally get out of his muddy clothes. 

Varian lingered far longer than needed. His silence only made the clinging and clattering more awkward, but Garrosh tried to distract himself by taking a seat on the corner of the bed and removing his boots. He kicked them off in a heap with his ruined clothing and waited. Varian finally reappeared, staring him down, with bottle of oil clenched tight in the palm of his hand. 

“Well,” he coughed, looking everywhere except Garrosh’s bare chest. The orc felt his face grow hot, the human’s clear disinterest setting his own nerves on edge.

“Well?”

“Uh, take off your pants and bend over. You know, like you did—”

“That’s _not_ what I did,” Garrosh’s ears burned. What was the human playing at, treating him like this? Acting like he was doing his duty, or… _what?_ Trying his best not to let them enjoy it? Is that what was on his mind?

His bare feet hit the ground, and he took a step forward; his eyes flashed, and he let out a sharp exhale. “Look, Wrynn, I don’t know what you’re trying to do to, but you’re not going to…to—” He sputtered and turned away. The shame of being stared at, arriving at his own wedding with mud on his face, having his mate refuse to see him…it made him want to grab the bed and throw it across the room. But instead he slammed back on the mattress. Biting his lip, he swallowed, and when his voice came again it was strained by the lump in his throat.

“Look Wrynn, I know you aren’t gay. If you don’t want to fuck me, then don’t. But stop rubbing it in my face.”

Varian stopped, stared for a moment, the bottle of lube still clutched in his hand. And then, with a sigh, he admitted, “That isn’t it.”

Taking another step forward, the human reached out his other arm, and for a moment it seemed he would press it against Garrosh’s chest. But his fingers fell short when Garrosh bolted upright. He bit his lip, and Garrosh shifted his weight. He opened his mouth but said nothing, so Garrosh, now rigid, interjected a short:

“ _What_ isn’t, exactly?” 

He felt as if he was on the defensive. And Varian was ready to put up a shield of his own. Doubling back, he shoved the vial in his pocket, growling and stomping away towards his desk.

“It’s not that I’m not attracted to you, Garrosh. Don’t you understand? This isn’t about what I do and don’t want,” the king did little to hide his exasperation. Pacing around his desk, he tossed aside papers, crumbled up letters and threw them away. Garrosh watched as he clenched and unclenched his fingers, watched his nails as they dug into the wood beneath them. Rising, he tried to close the distance between them, but Varian only continued:

“Never once have I tried to embarrass you. I’ve defended you over and over again at my own expense. How much more do you want from me?”

“For you not to hate me. I don’t know. For a chance to stop hating myself.” 

He hadn’t meant to say it so freely, but when he did, Varian lifted his eyes. They watched each other for a moment, and then Garrosh added, low, ashamed. “I feel bad, you know.”

Varian exhaled, and the hiss of his breath lingered too long in his pause. Finally, his shoulders relaxed and he let his fingers unfurl. “I’m sure you do.” And then, shaking his head, he added, “There’s a reason I keep defending you.”

“But today—”

“What do you mean?”

Garrosh persisted, biting his upper lip. Today, Varian had hated him. He had looked at him like some kind of beast. There was no mistaking that rage, not like the playful rage that had once fueled their duels, but a fury that burned in his eyes and set his lips into a scowl when Garrosh walked up the aisle to meet him. 

Wrath, almost madness, when Varian saw what had become of his face…

But when Varian spoke to him now, only a hint of that fire remained. Now it had yielded to something else: something Garrosh couldn’t quite place. Stress, maybe, or even _di_ stress, and then:

“Garrosh, has anyone told you how Tiffin died?”

He opened his mouth, but then shook his head. Where was Varian taking this?

“She was killed in a mob, just like yours today. Actually,” he sighed, sinking down into his chair. His hands fumbled for one of the papers he had crumpled and swept away. “Probably some of the same group of people. They’re trying to stir up rebellion again, and this time they might succeed.”

Sighing, Garrosh looked down at the paper clutched in his mate’s hands. “Fighting in Westfall,” the headline proclaimed and then, smaller beneath it, the tagline: “King Varian Wrynn Goes to Bed with the Enemy.” He didn’t know what to say; the anger and pain in his chest soon yielded to worry.

“There’s more riding on this than how I feel or don’t feel about you. No matter who I try to appease, somebody’s going to get hurt.”

“But you’re their king.”

“And a traitor, if you ask most of my subjects.”

“But you aren’t.”

“I don’t know.” 

Varian sank his head in his hands; Garrosh watched as his fingers slid through his bangs, caught them shaking, even, as he tangled the locks and tugged them away from his face. And all he could do was linger, and wait.

Of course he had known what coming to Stormwind could cause, but when Varian smiled down on him that last morning on Draenor it had seemed for a moment— a too hopeful moment, maybe, a rare burst of optimism— that things could somehow be easy. That he’d have a mate who defended him at his trial and volunteered to keep him by his side. 

Garrosh didn’t kid himself into believing everything else would go away, but at the very least he had hoped for a chance to prove he was more than a monster. 

And so he sank down beside him, and waited. And when Varian finally lifted his head to meet Garrosh’s eyes, he exhaled, and reached out to touch his arm. “You can stay here tonight.” And then, even lower, he added, “Please.”

____________________

That night, Varian dreamed about Stormwind. Half-formed images of fire threatening to spill out into the streets, the smell of smoke and burning flesh sending him coughing and gagging to the earth. An orc in the doorway took off running, chasing him along the canals and out towards the harbor, and when he got there, stumbling and wheezing, a mob had already gathered.

They were angry. Their growls made him jolt in his sleep. His fingers scratched at the pillow beneath him, all but yanking out pieces of thread, and then he was back at the top of the stairs, watching as the Horde army swarmed up his shores.

Watching as Garrosh, his face twisted by the sha’s corruption, stepped out of the ship and grasped the hilt of his axe.

It all happened at once: the burning of Stormwind, the riots, Tiffin’s body crumpling into his arms, his son impaled on a spike above his head. The scenes kept shifting and melting together at the edges. One moment he was a child, and the next he was king. He stumbled into the cathedral, shaking and scared, a cry on his lips as he searched every room for Lothar, until arms grabbed him from behind and shook him, hard, too thick and warm to be Lothar’s, so they must have been…the orc. The orc caught him. No. No.

He whipped around, and the hand on his shoulder shook harder. He opened his eyes, and in the darkness he could barely make out the curve of an orc’s head, the point of his ear, his eyes blinking and staring at him through the shadows.

Garrosh.

“You were crying,” he explained, his voice low. Another shiver overtook Varian, and the king turned away, trying to catch his breath.

After a shaky pause, the orc tried again. “I thought I should wake you up. You were twitching and scratching the bed. I thought you were having a dream.”

“Yes Garrosh,” he finally managed. Fear had yielded to nausea, and when he squeezed his eyes closed, all he could see was his city on fire, his people screaming. Tears started to roll down his cheeks; he curled up into himself, and if the orc noticed, at least he didn’t address it. 

Instead, he just waited: waited so long that Varian thought he had gone back to sleep. But just when Varian decided it was safe to let down his guard and suck back his tears in a sharp inhale, Garrosh shifted and scooted closer. He clutched the top of his blanket, yanking it up around his shoulders. He felt Garrosh reach out. 

And then there were fingers brushing back Varian’s hair.

_What are you doing_ He wanted to ask, but he knew if he opened his mouth the sobbing might start, and the last thing he needed was Garrosh listening to that. And so he just pursed his lips, and waited, concentrating on his fingers brushing his hair off his sticky cheek and his palm pressing firm against the top of his shoulder. His nausea started to subside. He swallowed, and when he let his eyes close, the burning city was gone.

Instead, there was Garrosh, not wielding an axe, but…touching him. Draping his arm around his waist and telling him to go back to sleep.

His body was warm, and his touch conflicting. The more he processed— the more the nightmare yielded to the reality of his room, the first rays of dawn peeking through his window, the chest pressed firm and warm against his back— the more questions he wanted to ask. 

But Garrosh soon fell back to sleep. His breath tickled Varian’s neck, and his face burrowed into Varian’s messy hair. 

And Varian hoped he would never mention this again.


	3. Chapter 3

Raika let out a ‘yp’ and took off across the snow-covered courtyard, her paws leaving a tiny trail across an otherwise-undisturbed sea of white. She bounced, sinking in to her belly each time, and from the way she barked it was clear she didn’t know what to do once she realized her own predicament. Kotna’s nails scratched across the cobblestone as she followed her sister from beneath the awning, scrambling, shooting Garrosh a look that seemed to ask what these humans had done to their favorite patch of grass. 

Garrosh shrugged, and snorted. Beside him, he felt the guards tense and clench the hilt of their swords.

No matter what Varian said, it was hard not to feel like the Keep had become his prison.

Kotna rounded the corner past the throne room, yipping and dashing, and the guards exchanged conflicted looks. Before they could scold him for getting too close to whatever meeting was taking place in the room beyond, Garrosh called out, loud enough to make them go rigid. 

“Hey Kotna, not in there. This way.”

She doubled back; Raika stumbled out of the snow, and now, frosty and wet, shook her fur off in a puddle, and then they were off towards to door to the library. Garrosh brushed past the guards, this time, and tried to pretend their eyes weren’t on his back.

But it was difficult when they muttered under their breath and their armor clinked together as they shifted their weight. 

Around the second corner ice had spilled out beneath the archway. Raika came to a skidding halt, and then her sister, not yet accustomed to the strange sensation of cold on her paws, barked at it as if she could make it melt. Garrosh leaned over and scooped her into his arms, leaving just enough time for Raika to pad her way off through the library door. He heard a rustle of something like leaves, and then a crash: a shatter, and then a small, surprised gasp:

“Oh, are you all right?”

Garrosh recognized that voice. He drew in a breath and, wondering how long it would take for the guards to come chasing him down, hurried across the threshold, his eyes falling on a familiar blond prince knelt down beside the tree.

He coughed, and then tried his voice. Anduin looked up with Raika now clutched in his arms.

“Did she break something?”

“Oh, it’s all right,” the prince answered, a little too quick. The ball of fur in his arms started to writhe, and he sat her back down, his smile tense but sheepish. They hadn’t said much since Garrosh’s arrival, and every time it had been like this: Anduin smiling but still on his guard, and Garrosh rigid, worried that one word misspoken could take them back to that cliffside up in Kun-lai. 

He set his jaw in a line, and leaned down to assess the damage his pup had done to the tree. Scooping up shards of blue-and-gold glass came as a welcome distraction from the cane the boy used to bring himself back up to standing.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled and crossed the room to drop the glass into a bin. Wiping the shards off his palm, he chanced a look and caught Kotna pressing her paws against Anduin’s shin. He shook his head and opened his mouth to scold her; Anduin must have anticipated it, because he lifted his hand and added a quick, “No no, it’s all right. I, ah, they’re cute. I hear them sometimes at night, and I wanted to see them—” 

“I hope they weren’t keeping you up—” Garrosh began, his voice a little too tight in his throat.

“Oh no, nothing like that. I mean, I hear them across the hall, but I didn’t want to bother you, to, ah—”

Anduin smiled; the look was strained, but sincere, and Garrosh let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“They’re friendly,” his eyes followed Raika as she threw herself down on the rug by the fire, rubbing her back into the soft fibers and kicking her paws in the air. “But they don’t know what to do about snow. We don’t get it in Nagrand.”

Kotna soon joined her sister, leaving the two of them— Anduin propped on his cane and Garrosh with arms crossed over his chest— lingering, awkward, with the Winter Veil tree at their side. The colored lights played on Anduin’s eyes as he turned to look up at the decorations, and Garrosh assumed the conversation was over, until he saw the prince offer the hint of a grin.

“Well, I’ve seen twenty years’ worth of snow and father still thinks I’m going to crack open my head if I go out to vespers.”

Garrosh laughed; Anduin turned and smiled.

“They wouldn’t let me on the training ground, either,” he admitted. “Something about ‘safety hazard.’ I’m not sure what they expect me to do for two days.”

“The whole Keep is like that, you know. So many rules about where and when we can go. Don’t worry, it’s not just you.”

He had meant it in jest, Garrosh knew, but Anduin always knew the right thing to say. He thought back to the guards, the way they had stared at him in challenge and how angry it had made him feel, and for a moment he was able to let it go. Standing a little straighter, he followed Anduin’s gaze to the tree; his shoulders relaxed, and his arms unfolded to rest at his sides.

“So how are you liking it here?” The prince reached out to adjust a blue-and-red ornament of a moon trimmed in gold. His voice was low, but honest, and Garrosh felt he could finally confess:

“The bed is nicer than mine used to be, and I like having a toilet. Some of the food makes me sick and it’s boring, but I’ve been practicing Common with that Hastings woman…”

“Miss Hastings?” Anduin chuckled. Taking a step to his left, he started to close the distance between them, and when he spoke again it was friendly and easy: not like one leader trading practiced greetings with another, but like a companion, happy to share in some gossip.

“Miss Hastings taught me Orcish, too. She’s from Alterac,” he pointed to an ornament bearing the mark of an eagle, which Garrosh took to be the flag of that kingdom. “So she speaks a lot like Thrall. I had a hard time understanding other orcs, though, to be honest.”

“You mean the way she says her ‘a’s?” He laughed and adjusted a blue-and-white crest that had slid to the end of its branch. Lordaeron, he recognized. He knew little about human kingdoms, but his trips to the Undercity still lingered like a curse in his memory, and he wouldn’t forget those blight-stained banners anytime soon. “I asked her to repeat some words I’ve heard on the training yard, but she got pissed and told me that ‘wasn’t in the lesson for the day.’”

Anduin stopped with his hand outstretched, and then he turned, his cheeks shining red in the light of the tree. “Wait,” he giggled. “You asked Miss Hastings to teach you to swear?”

“They say it all the time! I just wanted to know.”

Anduin’s smile widened. “What do they say?”

“ _Wanker_. I don’t know. Thrall didn’t teach me that one, okay? How was I supposed to know?”

The prince’s giggle made the lights in front of him swing. They ‘tnked’ and flickered, and when he finally managed to get the anchor clutched in his fingers to hook onto the tree, he yanked a little too hard on the branch. A shower of needles flitted down to the ground. He shook his head and his bangs swayed around his face. “You should ask my father. I mean, next time you see him.”

And then, for a moment, their laughter ceased. 

Garrosh swallowed, then Anduin finally spoke, “He has been seeing you—?”

“Once a week, for dinner, yes,” Garrosh tried to busy himself by leaning down and grabbing an ornament, but his fingers fumbled, and he all but let it drop back in the box. The little gold lion felt small clutched in his sweaty palm. He sighed, and his face grew hot. “And then he wants me to go.”

“My father, he’s—” _Like that_ , Garrosh could almost hear the prince say, but the words never quite reached his mouth. Garrosh just bit his lip and straightened his back; the fire behind them crackled, and then he exhaled to a groan.

“I mean, I get it. Trust me, this is better than what I deserve.”

He could feel the prince wanting to answer, he could sense his shoulders beside him and his hand clutching the grip of his cane. And for a few breaths it seemed that he would assure him, maybe, say something inspirational about the Light’s forgiveness or the celestials believing he had the power to change, like he had on the stand at the trial or down at the bars of his cell— but this time his voice was quieter. His words were terser. And his eyes glittering in the blue-and-gold light of the tree were careful, but honest:

“I’m glad you’re alive. We both are, you know.”

Garrosh’s lips parted, but he didn’t know what to say. And Anduin must have been able to sense it, because he added, clearly trying to lighten the mood, “And you’ll see him at the Winter Veil feast. You’re going to be seated between us. Father is having a chair made for you right now.”

The change in topic came as a relief, and when Kotna skittered across the floor behind them and Anduin laughed, Garrosh felt the muscles in his back and shoulders starting to unclench. His fingers unfurled, and he wiped his palms on the sides of his pants. Reaching down between them to scoop up another ornament, Anduin held it out and hung it right in the middle of the tree. 

“Next year we’ll invite your father for sure. With the war going on, we didn’t think he could, ah—”

“Oh, I know.” Nodding, Garrosh adjusted a light so it cast its glow across the lion’s gold face. He then added a bright purple eye— the Dalaran eye, another crest he recognized— two branches over, watching it swing and dance. This one was enchanted with something that made it move. Mesmerized, a little stunned, he continued without choosing his words, “We never celebrated this in our clans. It’s a human thing. Something they started after—” 

“Well, there’s a first time for everything!” 

Anduin smiled, but the look they exchanged was a serious one. Not wanting to let the conversation slip back into apprehension, Garrosh continued this time, curtly, but cheerful, at least, by his standards: “Yeah, and maybe he can send us some Warsong banners to hang on your trees like these other kingdoms did.”

“Oh!” The squeak that left Anduin’s lips was one of genuine surprise. Wide-eyed and a little bit flustered, he reached out to touch the tree. “You recognized them?”

“I recognized some of them, yes.” He pointed first at the eye— “There’s Dalaran”— and then at the “C” with a sword running through it: “And there’s Lordaeron. And I assume the lions are for Stormwind.”

“Yes, they are! And this one over here,” he gestured to the moon Garrosh had noticed before, “This one’s from Gilneas, where King Greymane used to rule, and there’s another tree in the main hall with gifts from the dwarves and the draenei. You’ll see that one at the feast. It always gets lit before the dancing begins.”

Anduin’s warm enthusiasm brought a kind of calm on its heels, and before long conversation came easily: even potentially difficult topics didn’t bring with them their usual weight. Garrosh kept picking up ornaments, and, passing them to Anduin, he let the prince explain each piece in turn. He heard about Anduin’s trip to Ironforge, and Arathor, the first human kingdom. 

The dogs yipped and played by the fire, and even the snow that whistled outside the archway didn’t make Garrosh feel quite as cold.

“My father is even letting Wrathion come to the dance this year,” Anduin chatted and passed Garrosh an enchanted star. “I, ah, think you’ve met him already. You know, the dragon. You met in Pandaria.”

“Your ‘friend,’” Garrosh prompted, earning a blush and a laugh from the prince as he took the star and placed it atop the tree. “Your father told me about that last week. The whole thing’s a scandal already. Don’t think a dragon will make any difference, he said.”

“Ahah, I’m sure it will be fine. It’s a holiday. My father just worries.” 

“We’ll see. If you ask Miss Hastings, the world will end if I eat the salad with my fish fork.”

“Oh no! It won’t be like that. Really, it won’t.”

“Oh, I know,” Garrosh flashed Anduin a knowing look, and the prince responded in kind. His eyes picked up the sparkle from one of the ornaments, and, as he turned to glance towards the fire, his cheeks seemed to take on its glow.

“It won’t matter what fork I use, because there’s no way in hell I’m eating that salad.”

“Well,” Anduin giggled. “You can always try to sneak it to me.”

____________________

It was a Wrynn family tradition to gather in Varian’s private chamber on the morning of the Winter Veil feast. But this year the room was populated by those who either couldn’t or wouldn’t attend the public festivities. Anduin and his ‘friend’ Wrathion laughed with Kalec near the fire, passing some book of Anduin’s between them and pointing out various illustrations of dragons and ladies.

Khadgar watched them and sipped from his flute of champagne, and Moira and Muradin tried to make conversation with Varian over a plate of pastries and bacon. Jaina remained silent, her lips pursed in a frown against the rim of her glass. 

“An’ so a’ told him ta shut his gob an’ stop tryin’ ta’ tell me how ta hang mah own lights. Drunk off his ass, he was. Craw was born wit’ a beer in his hand.” 

Varian laughed a little too loud, thankful that Muradin was trying to keep up the mood, but knowing his smile would only last as long as the dwarves kept talking. The truth hung over them like a cloud, and with every word they were only getting closer to good-bye: to bidding Jaina farewell, to trying his best to tell her how sorry he was, to going downstairs and facing a crowd of nobles now intent on taking his throne.

Muradin’s chuckles ended, and they lapsed to a pause. The only sound he could hear were Anduin and Wrathion whispering with Kalec in the corner. 

But Moira decided to address it. Coughing slightly, she reached for another croissant, and met Varian’s eyes from across the table. “We’re glad ta’ see ya well, Wrynn. Everyone here has been worryin’ but it looks like ya have held up.”

Varian’s stomach clenched; his hand stilled on the handle of his mug, and he waited a moment to gather his thoughts. Finally, taking a swig of his coffee and willing his voice to steady, he tried, low and grim: “We’re in talks with Westfall next week. We’ve agreed to use Stormwind taxes to subsidize their farms, at least for the next five years.”

“Oh, a’ know,” Muradin shook his head. “What ma’ niece is sayin’ is we’re glad ta’ see ya’ alive and well with Garrosh hangin’ around. Has he been tryin’ ta’ fight ya’? We haven’t got news of it back in our city.”

Of course that was what they were getting at, but Varian had hoped they wouldn’t take it as far as they did. He could already feel Jaina reacting, drawing in on herself and throwing back the rest of her wine.

And he didn’t blame her. Not a moment went past when Varian didn’t think about what his husband had done to her: how many human lives the orc had cut short because he couldn’t fight back his emotions. When he looked into his eyes, he still saw his tyranny. He remembered the way he had growled at the trial and scoffed at his friend’s emotions. It was hard to reconcile, and yet—

He also saw the look Garrosh gave him— hopeful and earnest— when he tried out some new word or phrase he had learned in his lessons. He felt the regret in his voice on the night of their wedding, and the way he had held him, his breath hot on the back of Varian’s neck. He swallowed and stared down into his mug. Churning it with a swish of his wrist, he watched his reflection ripple and dance.

“Garrosh is…Garrosh. But orcs take their vows very seriously, and he’s been—” Careful? Subdued? Unexpected? None of them quite felt right on Varian’s tongue. With a shaky exhale, he leaned back, shooting Jaina a glance, and then mumbling, pithy but firm. “He’s been fine.”

He hated catching the wince on her lips, but he couldn’t mislead his allies about Garrosh, either: not if he was going to keep his web of treaties and alliances from falling apart around him. He knew it hurt, but what could he say? Garrosh had been on his best behavior.

Luckily Khadgar must have been listening, ready to jump in and change the subject. “But I’ve heard Count Ridgewell has been a nightmare! He’s been telling some of my mages he wants us to cast a magical barrier around his family’s castle. Can you imagine?”

Varian felt the knot in his chest start to loosen, and finally managed to swallow the lump in his throat. He’d have to remember to thank the mage later; Muradin and Moira seized on the topic, and before long the table was back to its chatter.

All except Jaina, of course, but when Varian passed a tray of cookies in her direction, even the lines around her pursed lips stared to soften. 

“What does the man even have goin’ for him in there that he thinks needs protectin’? Last time a’ checked it was filled ta’ the brim with those puffy-sleeved tunics a’ his!” 

Settling back in his seat, Varian managed a laugh, and the rest of the morning passed without consequence. They finished their breakfast and said their good-byes, and when Jaina summoned the portal that would carry her and the Bronzebeards to Ironforge, he bowed his head and waited for her to pass by. She nodded, and he cast down his gaze. There was so much he knew he’d never be able to say, but he hoped she understood that no matter what happened, there were some things he’d never be able to forget.

Khadgar was the next to go: turning into a crow, he climbed out the window and took off into the air. He’d be back for the feast, he promised, after his errands were done. Varian smiled, and watched him go, turning around just in time to see Anduin taking Wrathion’s hand and leading him out the door.

And then he was alone. 

Shaking his head, he gave the two boys a moment to leave before walking down to consult his guards. When he arrived, however, they still seemed to be trying to figure out what they had seen: one of them had his eyes fixed on Anduin’s door, and the other was whispering, bristling when he heard Varian’s footsteps approach.

“Ah, sir. Good to see you, sir. You’re aware there’s a dragon—?”

“Yes, I am aware.” He answered, smiling wryly. “I’m on my way downstairs. Please come retrieve me if anything…suspicious occurs.”

“Yes, your Majesty!” They both snapped to attention, and Varian readied himself to leave, squaring his shoulders and sweeping a strand of hair behind his ear. But then the guard on his left, a young man they called McNabb, cut in with a short, “Uh, I don’t know if you want to deal with this now, your Majesty, but Garrosh left you a gift.”

His eyes widened. He turned to regard the soldier, but there was no hint of lying or jest on his face. He uncurled his fingers and revealed a small piece of bone in his palm. It didn’t take long to find a wolf’s likeness carved in its surface, skilled lines and cuts bringing the creature to life. A hook— like the hooks they used on the trees downstairs— had been fixed to the curve of its spine: an ornament, and a beautiful one at that. Arcing his brow, he couldn’t help but ask: “Did Garrosh make this?” 

The guards seemed just as surprised as he was, though it was unclear whether it was the carving itself or their king’s reaction that shocked them. They exchanged glances, and the McNabb spoke again, slowly, as if he were choosing his words, “Garrosh came by here earlier to see you. You were with—” He cut himself off, and then tried again, his gaze drifting past Varian’s face to the wall. “In any case, we turned him away. I hope that was what you wished, Your Majesty. We didn’t want—”

“Of course,” he used one hand to gesture away the young man’s concerns, and scooped up the gift in the other. The bone felt smooth in his palm, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had inspired Garrosh to bring it, and what he had said when he passed it into his soldiers’ keeping.

But the best way to find out the truth was to go to its source. Voice low, still a little stunned, he nodded and bid the two men farewell. “Happy Winter Veil,” he said, and then, pursing his lips, willing the confusion and shock and conflicted feelings from his eyes, he added, trying his best to sound brisk: “I’ll go tell him ‘good morning’ right now. Thank you.”

When he made it to Garrosh’s door he loosened his grip on the wolf and paid it another stare. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips, but his brows still knitted together. Lifting his other hand to knock on the door, he watched it shake, uncurl and then curl again, before he rapped his knuckles against the wood.

Garrosh was full of surprises, and when he heard him unlatch the door, he couldn’t help but wonder what else was left to discover about the orc he had hated and trusted and given the rest of his life.

He’d have forever, he supposed, to find out.

____________________

The feast was just as uncomfortable as Garrosh expected: from the silk and fur-trimmed tunic he was handed to wear just hours before to the plates of _disgusting_ plants and moldy cheeses set out in front of him, Garrosh would have felt ill at ease even if he were at the dinner alone.

But with human nobles watching his every move, murmuring whenever he lifted his fork or squirmed in his seat, all he wanted was to flip the table and scream.

“So, Varian,” a woman four seats away with a plume of feathers in her hair craned her neck to watch him. He stabbed the green plant thing with his fork; metal scraped against porcelain, and her lips twisted into a smirk. Shoving the spear into his mouth, he chewed, trying hard not to let his grimace reach up to his eyes.

“We’re all glad to see you here unscathed. It must be challenging, taming…someone like him to conduct himself at a royal court. It must be hard to communicate.”

Varian coughed, but Anduin spoke up before Garrosh could snap, “Garrosh knows Common, and he has the same tutor who taught me Orcish giving him lessons.”

“You can speak Orcish?” The lady beside the first— this one with blonde hair falling in waves off her shoulders, her tiny lips pursed in a sour look— shook her head, then whispered, as if they couldn’t hear, “Oh dear. What would his mother say?”

Garrosh caught Wrathion scowling, but Anduin pressed his fingers against his arm and cut in, carefully, “King Greymane, I read in a book in the library that people in Gilneas wore paper crowns for Winter Veil. Is that true? Did they get one for you, as well?”

From Varian’s other side, Genn turned and leaned forward to speak with Anduin. Garrosh listened as he explained some kind of device called ‘crackers,’ which, Garrosh decided after a moment, had nothing to do with the kind of crackers with cheese they were always trying to serve him. He clenched the tiny stem of his wine glass and threw back the rest of its contents. Beside him, he felt Varian shift in his seat.

One of the servants refilled his wine, and the next course passed without circumstance. Garrosh pushed the leaves around his plate and looked for the pieces of shrimp. At one point when Varian’s head was turned to speak with an elderly man at the end of the table, Anduin scooped up his shrimp with his spoon and passed them, without comment, to Garrosh. Catching his eye, he flashed him a grateful look. Anduin simply nodded.

Next came the fish, and then, after that, the haunch of a pig. Finally, something he knew he could eat, even if the humans had tried to ruin it by cooking it in the fruit. If nothing else, he could sneak the yellow circles to Anduin. He glanced over at the prince, only to catch him smiling and whispering something to Wrathion. Chancing a glance back in Varian’s direction, he saw the king’s lips purse into a scowl.

“So, Garrosh,” the noble across the table cut in, his gaze moving from Garrosh’s plate to his eyes, then back at the stack of fruit he discarded, as if to point it out to the rest of the feasters. “If you can speak, why don’t you tell us what orcs eat for Winter Veil. I’m sure it must be _fascinating_.”

“We had pig in Orgrimmar,” he tried to look over at Varian, but Varian’s eyes were fixed on the table in front of him. It was as if he were holding his breath. Garrosh reached again for his wine, then continued, “We roasted them in the Valley of Honor. We had beer, too. Not wine. And everyone ate together.”

“Everyone?” This seemed to catch someone’s attention, though Garrosh didn’t see who. He just nodded, and answered:

“You know, it was a party. One of the elders put on a fuzzy hat and handed out gifts to the orphans. I think your people do the same thing in Stormwind.”

A murmur passed between feasters, and beside him, Garrosh felt Varian exhale. His grip loosened on the arm of his chair, and with his other hand he reached for his fork. He stabbed it into a piece of ham and almost made up it up to his lips, but then another noble cut in—

“It’s just hard to imagine, Winter Veil in that dusty old place. My men were sunburned for weeks after the Siege. It’s absurd to think they _dress up_ —”

“It’s not like Winter Veil is our holiday,” Garrosh snapped back. “My people learned it in your ‘internment camps.’ But all they got back then was an extra serving of porridge. Do you remember _that?_ ”

Varian’s fork knocked back against the rim of his plate. It clattered and clinked, but Garrosh barely paid it a thought, barely felt Anduin’s hand as it reached out to touch his arm. All he could see were the nobles staring him down from all sides, and he glared, baring his tusks.

“It was in their best interest, you know,” the noble with feathers in her hair murmured between bites of ham, seeming more content to speak to the blonde woman beside her than to address Garrosh directly. “Animals have to be penned, we told Terenas, and look what’s become of them now.”

Garrosh opened his mouth to retort, but Wrathion beat him to it. Switching to Orcish, he looked down the table at Garrosh, his lips spread in a toothy grin. “If only he had locked up Arthas, as well. How much trouble that would have saved the world! Can you imagine?”

The joke— a subtle show of solidarity, as far as he was concerned— made the orc smile, but beside him Varian gagged, all but spitting his wine on his plate. Whether the nobles had understood the remark or not was unclear, but the name Arthas, at least, seemed to set them on edge. 

Anduin reached down beneath the table to rest his hand on Wrathion’s thigh. Garrosh forced himself to fall silent, choosing instead to glare at the fruit on his plate.

And for a time, they lapsed back to cordial, if not stilted, conversation. Garrosh poked at his food and listened as Khadgar explained some technical word he couldn’t quite catch and the cluster of ladies around him started to giggle. Their ham plates were cleared, merlot was swapped for champagne, and the servants circled around to set down a slice of cake at every place setting.

And Garrosh, assuming everyone had lost interest in watching him eat, saw little need for discretion this time. He picked up his plate and passed it to Anduin. The prince smiled and made room by giving Garrosh his wine. 

Garrosh drained his own flute, then sipped at Anduin’s in silence, his gaze straying to the Winter Veil trees lining the hall, the snow still lingering in the corners of every window, the way Varian felt with his knee nearly pressed against Garrosh’s thigh. He shifted and closed the last few inches between them, and Varian, for once, didn’t jerk back. Smiling to himself, he listened and waited for the king to finish his plate, first looking at him, then down at the rest of the table. All seemed to have settled, until—

Catching his eye, a woman Garrosh knew to be Genn Greymane’s daughter offered an honestly friendly look. He nodded, and then she asked, her voice low, but not low enough to pass unnoticed: “How much did Prince Anduin bribe you for your cake? This one’s always been his favorite.”

“It makes me sick,” he admitted, the wine making his words come freer. “Orcs can’t eat cream and sweets like this. It makes us feel sick.”

“Carnivores,” a middle-aged man in a golden tunic looked all too pleased by his own declaration. Garrosh just blinked at him, until he elaborated in broken Orcish. “Just meat. Just eat meat.”

“No,” Garrosh arced his brow and took another sip of champagne. He answered in Common, his own words much clearer than the noble’s attempt at his language. “We eat flatbread, spice bread, and some roots. Also a few kinds of fruit that grow in Nagrand.”

But if the human had understood Garrosh’s elucidation, he didn’t seem to want it to show. He instead turned to the woman on his left and kept chatting, as if he described a primitive species. “They don’t develop like us, you know. It’s the same with the trolls. I once read a whole clan got sick off of cow’s milk in Elwynn.”

“Perhaps we should have employed dairy farmers instead of our soldiers, then. The war would have gone a lot smoother, and Westfall would have been able to ward them off.”

“I wonder if ram’s milk works, as well? Dun Morogh would have set a fine defense!”

Garrosh had forgotten how much he hated the sound of human snickering. It set him on edge, and all he could do was grit his teeth and clutch at the hem of the tablecloth against his leg. Varian nudged at him with his knee; Garrosh shot him a look, trying to figure out what the king was trying to tell him.

But with his brows knit and his lips set in a line, he couldn’t decide if Varian was commiserating, or admonishing. He swallowed and sat up a little straighter. What did Wrynn expect him to do, with his nobles insulting his people like this?

He tried his best, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Face red, eyes fixed on the table, he sipped at his wine and shifted. Squirmed, and tried to avoid their eyes. Varian said something about lighting the tree that barely made sense to him, his own mind too consumed by the king’s voice and gesture to fully parse out the words, but then the man, that same horrible man, turned to Varian and asked in a voice laden with feigned concern:

“I do hope you haven’t taught Garrosh to dance. Stormwind doesn’t need that kind of humiliation on a festival night like this.”

Varian’s voice was more like a cough: strained, muttered between his lips as they curled into a scowl: “Anduin and his _friend_ will be leading the dance this year. You know I don’t dance anymore.”

“Not since Tiffin,” the blonde woman seemed to feel the need to add. Varian turned to face her, and Garrosh curled his hands into fists.

“Yes, not since Tiffin. She always wanted to dance, but I’ve never been very fond of it.”

“It’s for the best, really,” the feather-haired woman whispered again to her friend. With every twitch of her smile and bat of her hand, Garrosh hated her more and more. If they weren’t in Stormwind, at his husbands table, he would have thrown her down and snapped her head from her neck. But for now, all he could do was growl, but neither his tusks nor his eyes seemed to deter her.

She just continued, loud, self-important: “You know, flaunting this kind of relationship would be unwise. If I’m not mistaken, bestiality is still illegal in Stormwind. It’s bad enough seeing the prince with a dragon, but if the courts raised a case against our king…what a disaster! Can you imagine?”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, Rosalee, but let me remind you—”

“Of course,” she continued, paying Varian merely a glance before scoffing. “That is assuming they’ve _sealed the deal_ , as it were. If they haven’t consummated, of course, that is a different story.”

“Rosalee, that is enough. We can discuss this alone downstairs,” Varian muttered and clenched his jaw. Rosalee turned her eyes onto Garrosh.

“Do you understand, orc? Con-sum-mate. Though I suppose ‘mate’ alone is more appropriate to your species’ proclivities.” 

“Rosalee, if you will just—” 

“Tell us the truth, orc. The whole kingdom wants to know. Has our king degraded himself with you? He hasn’t paid you a glance all evening. Surely you can’t deny the disgust in his eyes when he looks at you, the utter _denial_ when he—”

“Rosalee, that is _enough._ Do you understand?” Varian’s shout shook the windows.

But Garrosh was already on his feet. His glass toppled and shattered when he slammed back against his chair. His hands hit the table, and blood and hate and dismay flooded across his cheeks until all he could do was yell out in Orcish and stomp his boot on the floor.

Shaking, furious. Mortified. He squared his shoulders and took off, no longer caring about doing what he had been told or pretending he cared about these nobles with their awful food and muttering and gossip and the way they looked on him like an animal.

He slammed open the door, and hurried away. He didn’t want them to see his hands shake, to give them the satisfaction of catching him in his weakness. Behind him he heard Varian asking his son to lead the group to the courtyard, but it all felt like a scene being played in his pounding head.

Over the sound of his own ragged breath and his own pulse racing in his ears— of the door slamming against the wall and squealing back closed on its hinges— he didn’t hear his husband approach until he was already into the stairwell.

____________________

“Garrosh!”

Varian had all but gained on the orc by the time the two of them reached the second landing. Arm outstretched, he tried to reach out and stop him, but Garrosh only shook him away. Heart pounding and caught in his throat, Varian tried again, firmer, even more insistent.

“Garrosh, come back downstairs with me. We need to be at the ceremony. Just come down and—”

“You go back down!” Garrosh all but roared. Hand slamming against the guard rail, he whirled around, and seethed out a shaky breath. Their eyes met, and Garrosh bit down on his upper lip before snapping and turning away. “I’ll be up in my room. Go back and dance with your friends.”

“My friends?” Varian stared, incredulous. “Garrosh, I hate them. They’ve hated me for years. Everything isn’t always about you. They’ve always—” 

“I don’t care what it’s about. I’m not going down there with them.”

“Garrosh, come on—”

Garrosh was off again up the spiral, and Varian fought to keep up with his pace. Breath ragged and cheeks growing flush, he tried again, hand reaching and landing against the small of his back. The orc recoiled beneath his fingers, and he cursed his own inability to just talk, to just tell him the truth and get it all out.

But every time he opened his mouth he yelled, and every time Hellscream turned to meet his eyes he found himself tensing.

“Look, Wrynn, I get it. Okay. I understand. Just go back down there yourself and tell them you put your spouse in his place. Save face with them. Don’t let them use me against you.”

“ _Save face_ with them? Garrosh, what are you talking about? I never once said I wanted—” 

“Or maybe I should act like a beast. Then you could throw me in jail and it all would be over. Is that what would fix this? If you just put me away and then—”

“Garrosh, for fucks sake! I have no intention of imprisoning you, or, or—”

The crack in his voice seemed to take his husband by surprise, and he stopped, suddenly, whirling around and looking him in the eyes. Varian felt his own jaw starting to ache; the shame and ire and unhindered regret he saw in his husband left him staring, chest tight, knees threatening to give out. 

And so he just stared, and quietly, almost brokenly, Garrosh mumbled, “I’ve tried, Wrynn. You know. I’ve tried.”

“I know.”

He opened his mouth and wanted to add— something, anything to chase the shame from his husband’s eyes— but somehow there was nothing and everything left to say. He wanted to detail his own concerns, the way he grappled with who Garrosh used to be, how conflicted he felt when he saw him as human and not just the monster he had been made out to be. He had said as much at the trial, known it all along, but seeing the proof firsthand made things harder rather than easier.

He wanted to say he accepted him, to tell him how often he thought of that night in Nagrand: Garrosh’s skin flushed against his and the way he had trembled and clenched around him as he looked down at him with a smile.

But when he parted his lips to speak he couldn’t say anything. There was just a sigh, weary and long, and Garrosh’s gold eyes watching him from across the landing.

Varian drew in a breath and stepped forward; he rested his hand on Garrosh’s arm and he waited, careful and searching. And when Garrosh didn’t recoil or turn away, he strained up onto his toes and looked him straight in the face. Garrosh’s hand clenched the handrail behind him. Varian’s fingers trembled, and he slid the palm of his hand from the orc’s shoulder to the nape of his neck.

And then, their lips touched. 

Kissing an orc was…not what he had expected. Garrosh’s lower lip pressed soft and full between his, and when he shifted, his husband wrapped his free arm around him and dug his hand into the small of his back. His breath was hot against Varian’s nose; metallic rings contrasted with the flush of the orc’s skin. Shuddering, letting his eyes slide closed, Varian held him and breathed in his scent.

Just like that night in his bed. Just like the dreams he had been having thereafter, when Garrosh nuzzled his hair and slid his hand down to squeeze and jerk at his cock through his pants.

Only this time it was Varian’s hand that strayed down between them, Varian’s voice that murmured against his lips, and he felt his mate shudder. 

“Wrynn.”

All at once, something inside Varian snapped: all his pent-up energy and reservation came to a head as he slammed Garrosh against the wall. When he kissed him again, the orc’s lips parted and his tusks pressed against the sides of his cheeks. Varian’s tongue sought out his, and the hand that had pressed against Garrosh’s neck now moved to the stone beside them, steadying them, allowing Varian to rock his hips forward and cry out as Garrosh reached up to give his hair a pointed tug.

His other hand still between them, he fumbled with the sash of Garrosh’s human robe, its lacings more familiar but his hands just as shaky as that night they had spent together in Nagrand.

Garrosh murmured out his approval, and his lips moved to nip at Varian’s ear, then his jaw, then his throat. The strange sensation drew a moan from the king, and he relaxed, easily this time; fear no longer gripped his chest. 

Garrosh felt large and strong around him, but there was a certain comfort in that. He steadied himself against him, and orc’s cock pressed firm into his hand. The head nearly as too thick for his palm to accommodate, he stretched his fingers around it, toying with the ring with his thumb, exploring each bar as he stroked back his foreskin and made his way down to the base.

Feeling a groan rise deep in the orc’s chest was more than enough to encourage him. Nuzzling his face against his collar, Varian let his curiosity and desire and need take over. Stroking him, rolling his hips against him, he shifted up on his toes and claimed his lips in another desperate kiss.

And Garrosh dug his nails into his back. One hand slid up to press between his shoulders— keeping him flush against him— and the other reached down to give his ass a squeeze. It was all Varian could take to keep from crying out. His voice echoed in the stairwell; his lips parted, and Garrosh caught his lower lip between his teeth, nipping and teasing, tugging then flicking his tongue against his now bruised skin.

And against his palm, the orc’s cock started to leak. He worked his hand faster, rubbing, exploring, until—

“Fuck, Wrynn, upstairs.”

Not bothering to parse out the orc’s whisper in all of its various meanings, Varian only nodded, haphazardly forcing his cock back into his pants and clutching his hand as they stumbled out into the hall. He could hear his guards murmuring, but just as his cheeks grew hot Garrosh threw open the door on their left and led him into his room.

It slammed behind them. Varian all but ripped Garrosh’s pants down off of his hips. His tunic, too, joined the pile of silk and fur on the floor beside them, and, when he pressed back against his husband, his palms found his bare chest and his cock rubbed firm against the front of Varian’s clothes.

“On the bed,” he managed to gasp on the heels of his moan, and this time Garrosh didn’t protest. Just like he could have— and should have— done on their wedding night, he pressed the orc over the side of the mattress and rolled his own cock against the curve of his ass. Garrosh knotted up the sheets in his fingers. Varian slid his hand up his spine to the back of his head, pushing him down, letting urge rather than fear take hold and jerking his hips against him.

With Garrosh spread out beneath him, without his eyes watching, making Varian blush and his breath catch in his throat, it was easy for hands to wander. He explored the expanse of his back, feeling his muscles tense as his hand strayed around his waist to reach down and grasp his cock. Feeling the heat of his skin against his lips as he growled and bit the back of his neck.

Feeling the moan— though muffled by the bed pressed against his face— as it rose in his throat and his murmur: “Come on, Wrynn. Fuck me.”

Varian’s hand stilled against the head of his cock. For a moment, his nerves threatened to take hold, but his husband must have been able to sense the change because he shifted his weight and easily rolled out from under him. He looked down at the obvious tent in Varian’s pants, and just as Varian’s face grew hot he grabbed him and pressed their lips together. When they parted again, he looked at him, then touched the top of his pants.

“Take them off.”

And before he could answer, Garrosh had wandered away to dig through his drawers. 

He cursed himself for his own inexperience, but from the sly look that spread across Garrosh’s face, the orc didn’t seem to mind. Fighting the need to defend himself, to snap back something he’d later regret, he just accepted the vial of lube Garrosh pressed into his palm and let his eyes stray to his husband’s cock with all of its decorations. Cheeks red, he mumbled a gruff “okay” and then backed up to give Garrosh his space.

But this time the orc didn’t bend over. Instead he laid back on the bed, spreading and opening his legs in invitation. Varian’s mouth went dry. His fingers struggled to open the lube. He felt Garrosh searching his face, and when he looked up into his eyes he found him grinning, lips curled around his tusks, hand sliding down to jerk his own cock. 

His mate.

A sharp exhale escaped him as he wet his palm and used it to slick up his shaft. And then he leaned forward, struggling, awkward, at first, to find the right angle, but then grasping the base of his cock and pressing as he felt his mate’s body starting to open.

The tight ring of muscles surrounded him. He sank down into his heat, and he whimpered, face pressed against the curve of his shoulder, free hand clinging to the bed beside them for support.

And then the heat of his body overtook him.

His husband shuddered and clenched, and he sank his teeth into the slope of his neck.

Rolling his hips forward, he tried to give Garrosh time to adjust, but the orc only urged him down deeper. His arm wrapped around him and scratched for a place to hold on, finally catching him at the top of his shoulder and clinging. Wrapping his legs around his waist and all but arcing his back from the bed, Garrosh thrust down. Varian met him. He rocked himself forward into his heat until their lips pressed together. 

Garrosh let out a groan, and Varian’s cock twitched inside of him. Their lips parted, and Varian sought out his tongue, sucking the tip, trying to bite between moans and gasps and hitches of breath all but lost in the heat of his kiss.

They moved together like that, kissing and clinging and biting, with Garrosh’s fingers digging into his back and his other hand tangled up in his hair. And this time Varian didn’t need prompting to slip his hand down between them and jerk off Garrosh’s cock. He rolled his hand forward with every thrust, and dragged his palm down the length of his shaft as he rocked back to look into his eyes. 

Slicking his thumb with his precum, sliding the ring around through his slit and feeling Garrosh’s body react was enough to draw a moan from his lips. He muffled his cry in a kiss, and against his mate’s skin he felt himself whimper: “Garrosh.”

It all felt so easy, inside him like that, his heat and lips and the throb of his cock consuming him as Varian thrust and gasped to release. And knowing he could have him like this, that he could feel like this if he’d only give in to the orc’s persistence, stripped Varian of his defenses and left him rocking and gasping and leaking into his heat.

And his husband’s body was there to urge him on. He knew all he had to do was give in.

Varian slammed his hips forward and came hard into Garrosh’s warmth. Relief washed over him in waves, and as he rode the feeling of his release, slowing his thrusts and fighting to catch his breath, he continued to stroke off Garrosh until the orc’s cum leaked between his fingers. Slumping down against his chest, he drew in a shaky breath. Still buried inside his body, he clung to him, relaxing into the heat of the orc’s embrace.

Neither caring about the cum that now splattered his skin or the weight of the past and decorum and expectations, he simply rested and let his breath tickle his hair. He closed his eyes and listened to the pound of his heart. The rise and fall of his chest. The murmur of Garrosh’s name on his lips and the soft reply of the orc who whispered, “My mate.”

Limbs tangled together and Varian drifted off into sleep. And when he woke up the next day, he was still there in Garrosh’s arms.


	4. Epilogue

Thrall didn’t know what to expect when he heard they’d be meeting in Stormwind. Varian’s wedding had made front page news across every city in the Horde, and since then reports had been mixed: trouble at a Winter Veil event, a case brought against Varian in the courts that was heard and then quickly dismissed, a treaty with the remnants of the Blackrock clan in Redridge and the removal of Alliance troops from Morgan’s Vigil.

Everyone half-expected to find the kingdom in ruins, to learn that one had attacked the other or find out that Garrosh had hurried off back to his father. But somehow he knew that wouldn’t occur. He had always wondered— no, suspected— that there might be more to Garrosh’s hatred of Wrynn, and if nothing else, the orc always tried to stay true to his word…

At first it seemed that the Warchief would declare open war against Stormwind, and frankly, Thrall couldn’t blame his friend and commander for feeling betrayed by the human king. 

But by the grace of the spirits he managed to still Vol’jin’s hand; with rumors of war with the Legion, the last thing they needed was to split their troops between Draenor and Stormwind, and Vol’jin had seen the sense in uniting against a greater foe. Sylvanas still threatened to raise up an army, but without proper backing from the other Horde races, Thrall rested content knowing the treaty between orc and human would ultimately stand.

With compromise came victory, and with victory peace. The spirits had taught him much after his botched Mak’gora, and in Garrosh’s survival, in the hand of friendship Varian offered and the promise of Gul’dan’s final defeat, Thrall saw not just hope, but a second chance.

And so early that spring he arrived in Stormwind with Baine and his wife by his side. A retinue of soldiers and attendants met them at the docks, and for the first time they were permitted to walk freely through Stormwind’s gardens, past its cathedral, along its canals, and up to the gate of its Keep.

And Varian himself stood in the courtyard to greet them, his armor-clad figure, though dwarfed by the statue that cast its shade down across him, no less distinguished than ever: his face cool and serious, but his eyes alight with the glow of the sun.

“King Wrynn,” Thrall showed respect by bowing his head. 

Varian responded in kind. “Go’el. Thank you for making the journey.”

Nobody spoke of Garrosh until they made it through the Keep doors and halfway up the marble-floored entry. Aggra’s eyes strayed to a portrait watching them as they passed, and Go’el followed her gaze. 

The painting showed Varian sat on his gold-plated throne. Anduin stood on his left, resting his hand on the head of a roaring lion and grinning with all the light of a summer afternoon. And on his right, Garrosh looked down with a silver crown perched atop his head. Though only a painted likeness, Thrall could almost feel the scene playing out in front of him: Garrosh groaning and whining that his legs were stiff, Anduin trying his best not to laugh, and the corners of Varian’s lips twitching into a smile.

“Will Garrosh be joining us?” He finally asked. 

Varian turned back, regarding the group with a searching look, and then went on to clarify, “Garrosh is upstairs in our room. I decided it might be best to ask before bringing him down to meet you.”

Go’el nodded and pursed his lips together in thought. He tried to decide what to say to the king, how to tell him he wanted to see him, to make sure he had settled into his life in Stormwind and extend a hand of apology as the spirits had urged him to do, but before he could struggle to put it all into words his wife had caught on to his hesitation:

“Your husband and I grew up together, your Majesty,” the shaman explained, and Thrall flashed her a grateful look. “I’d like to see how he’s doing.”

“I’d also like to see him,” Baine added. The king did little to hide his relief. 

“And Prince Anduin, too, if he isn’t otherwise occupied.”

“No, he’s not. I’ll have my attendants go up and summon them,” Varian nodded, and one of the guards at the throne room door turned and headed out into the courtyard. Rather than taking a seat on his throne as he had in the painting, however, Varian led them into a less formal room on its right. 

Circling around the war table, he faced them, and regarded the group with a practiced, but friendly look. Now alone, he spoke freer, and seemed less concerned with maintaining the distance usually required in a meeting of Alliance and Horde.

“Anduin will be pleased. He’s been begging to come down all day,” he admitted, and a smile twitched at his lips. “And Garrosh spent all last week explaining what foods to serve and not to serve at the feast tonight.”

Varian’s honesty opened the door, and Thrall couldn’t stop himself for following through, “How are things with you and Garrosh, if I may ask? I had my concerns, but it seems like you have—”

But the door behind them swung open, and when Thrall turned and looked over his shoulder, the question he posed died on his lips like a gasp. Garrosh crossed over the threshold with Anduin Wrynn at his side. Though his face was scarred by the jagged lines of the lightning that almost cost him his life, he carried himself with dignity. He wore a fur pelt and a blue silk tunic, and on his head, the same crown from the painting: silver, adorned with a wolf on one side and a lion with paw outstretched on the other, and in the middle, in the space where they met, a blue gem glistened and glowed.

Anduin extended his hand in greeting, but Garrosh just nodded and circled the table to stand at his husband’s side. He rested his hand on the king’s bracer, and Varian flashed him a comforting look. Garrosh’s face relaxed, and he finally regarded them: lips pursed, eyes careful but searching.

“My father’s forces advance on the Citadel next month. Will the Horde join our alliance and fight?”

Thrall nodded and reached out his hand. Garrosh accepted, and they shook, firm, determined.

In his time with the spirits, Thrall had come to believe in the power of new beginnings.


End file.
